14 DAY TRIAL // Experts at the American space agency have already begun the first stage of the study they plan to conduct throughout this hurricane season, which will see them flying a high-tech airplane straight in the middle of the most impressive storms.
The goal is to produce viable data on tropical storms, which may finally help experts understand precisely why some of the atmospheric events fizzle out without causing damage, whereas others turn into massive tornadoes.
It would appear that the research has already begun, considering that NASA already flew the first research flight this week. The effort was a part of the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes mission (GRIP) experiment.
“We want to look at storms that go from a Category 1 storm up to a Category 5 storm in a short period of time – what are the key processes that allow that to happen?” explains mission scientist Scott Braun.
He also holds an appointment as a research meteorologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The expert says that the GRIP mission benefits from the support of an entire fleet of airplanes.
The first flight was taken aboard the largest airplane available to the project, a DC-8. The sortie took place on the night of August 24, and the experts who flew it remained airborne in excess of eight hours.
The DC-8 was used to nosedive around the clouds of a frontal system that appeared to be developing close to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. However, the system did not intensify into a storm.
The NASA experts making up the research teams are convinced that no harm will come to them during the flights, even if they are purposefully heading their planes in the middle of storms.
“The pilots will avoid anything that looks too severe. They're very good about keeping us safe,” Braun believes.
In addition to the manned airplanes, NASA is also enlisting the help of Global Hawk Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV), which has been especially outfitted with scientific instruments for this type of research.
According to the space agency's flight manifest, the robotic probe will also be deployed next week above the western coast of Mexico, so that it can contribute to the GRIP mission, OurAmazingPlanet reports.