A Global Hawk aircraft at NASA Dryden. Photo by Neon Tommy/Len Ly

EDWARDS, Calif. -- A Global Hawk aircraft from NASA is scheduled to dispatch tomorrow evening and fly over a tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean as part of the space agency's summer campaign to study hurricane formation and intensification in unprecedented ways, officials announced Tuesday.

The unmanned drone, based at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center within Edwards Air Force Base, is expected to join a DC-8 and WB-57 piloted aircraft by Thursday over Hurricane Earl.

The mission is part of a hurricane research project called Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP), which began Aug. 15 and is expected to run through September. GRIP employs the three NASA-instrument-packed aircraft to fly at varying altitudes over tropical storms and capture real-time data about wind, temperature, humidity, lightning and other factors affecting the storms at different stages.

“So if we can understand the storms, we can better predict them,” said Gerry Heymsfield of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a GRIP project scientist.

GRIP provides a new platform for Global Hawk. It is the agency's first project to use an unmanned drone with 3-D radar, microwave radiometer and other instruments to fly over hurricanes.

The Northrop Grumman-built aircraft, which can reach an altitude of 65,000 feet, sets another observation record: It has a 30-hour flight endurance and can fly continuously over a storm system for up to 16 hours.

The mission cost for Global Hawk's portion of GRIP? $1.3 million, said Chris Naftel, project manager for Global Hawk at Dryden.

DC-8, dispatched from Florida, can fly for eight hours and at altitudes between 35,000 to 40,000 feet. WB-57, based in Texas, can fly for four hours and at an altitude of roughly 55,000 feet. The flight ranges include the time required to reach the storm and return to home base.

The hurricane experiment also uses multiple NASA satellites and four planes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation to conduct unprecedented measurements of tropical storms and their development.

Reach reporter Len Ly here.