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David E. Steitz
NASA Headquarters Washington DC
(202) 358-1730

Steve Roy
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, Ala.
(256) 544-0034
steve.roy@msfc.nasa.gov

CAMEX-4 Mission Public Affairs - Jacksonville, Fla.
(904) 542-1504

Status Report: 01-280

NASA hurricane study completes initial flights

A team of researchers participating in a NASA study has completed their first research flights Saturday, Aug. 18, for the Convection And Moisture Experiment (CAMEX) -- a mission to gather data vital to improving hurricane modeling and prediction.

Based at the Naval Air Station at Jacksonville, Fla., the airborne experiments took place aboard NASA's ER-2 and DC-8 aircraft carrying a series of instruments for gathering hurricane data while flying over, through, and around dangerous disturbances. Although the ER-2 is flown by a single pilot, 36 researchers flew the mission aboard the DC-8.

Information gathered from today's flights, which lasted just over four hours, allowed the researchers to perform tests of their instruments and communication systems. The aircraft flew to Andros Island in the Bahamas and Key West, Fla.

"Although we didn't have the opportunity to fly through a hurricane for these initial flights, we were able to locate and fly around thunderstorm conditions," said Robbie Hood, CAMEX mission scientist from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. "This gave us a good opportunity to calibrate our instruments and ensure we're fully prepared to glean all the information we can from the next hurricane that occurs in our flight range."

The CAMEX mission unites researchers from 10 universities, five NASA centers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The study is part of NASA's Earth Science enterprise to better understand the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment.