Media Day Planned for NASA Global Hawk’s First Hurricane Mission

PASADENA, Calif. – Reporters are invited to learn about the NASA Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system’s role in a major NASA hurricane study this summer during a media day Aug. 31 at the Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes, or Grip, experiment is a five-week NASA Earth science campaign to enable scientists to better understand how hurricanes form and grow stronger. The Global Hawk joins NASA’s DC-8 and WB-57 aircraft and satellites in collecting data during the mission. Among the instruments aboard the Global Hawk will be the High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), developed and managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. HAMSR is a microwave atmospheric sounder that will be used to infer the 3-D distribution of temperature, water vapor and cloud liquid water in the atmosphere.

WHO: NASA scientist Gerald Heymsfield will present an overview of Grip. Scientists for each of the instruments will be available for interviews, including HAMSR Principal Investigator Bjorn Lambrigtsen of JPL.

WHAT: Media tours of aircraft in hangar and ground operations center

WHERE: NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

WHEN: Tuesday, Aug. 31, 9:30 – 11:30 a.m., PDT

WHY: NASA’s Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system will fly long-endurance and high-altitude flights over hurricanes in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico

News media wishing to obtain credentials for this event must submit a request for accreditation to Dryden’s public affairs office by phone at 661-276-3449 or by e-mail to drydenpao@nasa.gov by the following deadlines:

– Foreign nationals and U.S. citizens representing foreign-based media – July 23

– U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens representing domestic media – Aug. 23

U.S. citizens must provide: full name, date of birth, place of birth, media organization, the last six digits of social security number and driver’s license number, including issuing state.

In addition, foreign nationals must furnish: current citizenship, visa or passport number, country of issue and expiration date. Foreign nationals with permanent residency must provide their alien registration number and expiration date.

For more information about NASA’s Grip experiment, visit: www.nasa.gov/grip .

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.