Media are invited to attend a technology demonstration event from 3:15 to 4:30 p.m., Friday, Sep. 22, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, showcasing the use of state-of-the-art technology – including autonomous vehicles – to collect coastal data from air, land, and sea.
This demonstration, which involves student participation, aims to highlight a combined scientific approach of examining short- and long-term storm impacts on the coast to better inform coastal resilience policies.
“Barrier island dynamics have become an area of growing interest to land managers of U.S. coastal states and counties,” said Dr. Michael Fenster, Randolph-Macon College. “This effort will provide the best science available to make this area resilient taking into account all stakeholder interests.”
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Secretary of Technology Karen Jackson and other state and federal dignitaries are expected to attend the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Resilience Institute (MACRI) event at the Virginia Space/Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport unmanned aerial systems runway on Wallops Island. The Wallops Island area is uniquely situated for supporting investigations with manned and unmanned system in three key operational realms: air, land, and sea.
A coastal science research team from the College of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point; University of Delaware, Newark; and Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Virginia, have developed a proposal using a combination of subaqueous and aerial manned and autonomous resources to determine the impacts of sea-level rise and storms on barrier island systems.
Media interested in attending the event should contact Keith Koehler at keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov by 4 p.m., Thursday, Sep. 21, and arrive at Wallops by 2:30 p.m. the day of the event.
