The first flight of NASA‘s hurricane airborne research mission is scheduled to take off from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on Tuesday, Aug. 17. NASA’s DC-8 research aircraft will be making a planned five-hour flight along the Gulf Coast from western Florida to Louisiana primarily as a practice run for the many scientific instruments aboard.

Image Courtesy: NASA.gov - The NASA DC-8 airplane on the tarmac at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Florida on Aug. 15 as preparations continue for its part in the GRIP hurricane experiment. Credit: NASA/Paul E. Alers

The target for Tuesday’s “shakedown” flight is the remnants of Tropical Depression 5, a poorly organized storm system whose center is currently hugging the coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana and moving westward. While forecasters do not expect this storm system to strengthen significantly before it reaches landfall in Louisiana, the system offers the DC-8’s seven instrument teams an opportunity to try out their equipment on possible convective storms. Rainfall rates, wind speed and direction below the airplane to the surface, cloud droplet sizes, and aerosol particle sizes are just some of the information that these instruments will collect.

Read more on  NASA’s GRIP mission website.

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