NASA Mission Sending Unmanned Aircraft Over Hurricanes in 2012 – This year

Let me share Technology News about NASA Mission Sending Unmanned Aircraft Over Hurricanes in 2012 – This year. Beginning this summer and over the next several years, NASA will be sending unmanned aircraft dubbed “severe storm sentinels” above stormy skies to help researchers and forecasters uncover information about hurricane formation and intensity changes.

Several NASA centers are joining federal and university partners in the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission targeted to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin.

NASA’s unmanned sentinels are autonomously flown. The NASA Global Hawk is well-suited for hurricane investigations because it can over-fly hurricanes at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet with flight durations of up to 28 hours – something piloted aircraft would find nearly impossible to do. Global Hawks were used in the agency’s 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) hurricane mission and the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) environmental science mission.

“Hurricane intensity can be very hard to predict because of an insufficient understanding of how clouds and wind patterns within a storm interact with the storm’s environment. HS3 seeks to improve our understanding of these processes by taking advantage of the surveillance capabilities of the Global Hawk along with measurements from a suite of advanced instruments,” said Scott Braun, HS3 mission principal investigator and research meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

HS3 will use two Global Hawk aircraft and six different instruments this summer, flying from a base of operations at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

“One aircraft will sample the environment of storms while the other will measure eyewall and rainband winds and precipitation,” Braun said. HS3 will examine the large-scale environment that tropical storms form in and move through and how that environment affects the inner workings of the storms.

POF EYE: PAKISTAN MAKES THE CORNERSHOT WEAPON

POF Eye is a special-purpose weapon similar in concept to CornerShot that can fire around corners. It was first revealed in the 5th International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS-2008) held at Karachi Expo Centre in November 2008. It is designed for SWAT teams and special forces in hostile situations usually involving terrorists and hostages. It allows its operator to both see and attack an armed target without exposing the operator to counter-attack.

It consists of a segmented, assault rifle-type folding stock, pistol-grip contraption, onto which is attached a pistol of choice and a compact, detachable color video camera. A lateral left and right swinging hinge mechanism and a remote trigger control allow the user to drop the hammer on targets from behind the safety and comfort of any right-angled structure.

The system, especially designed for urban combat, anti-terrorist operations and police SWAT operations.

Chairman POF Board Lt Gen Syed Sabahat Husain told the visiting delegates at IDEAS 2008 that this new product of POF may meet the requirement of law enforcing agencies in order to curb the terrorist activities. The live demonstration of this gun was also shown to the delegates.According to one of the designers, Ashfaq Ahmad, the overall designing and finalizing of this gun took 6 months. Several domestic and international participants and delegates took keen interest in the newly introduced anti-terrorist weapon. Once the weapon is put into mass production, POF would take orders for its supply to prospective local and international buyers.

Forms and variations

“The POF Eye is available in several variations. It can be mounted with standard 9mm semi-automatic pistol, submachine gun or grenade launcher. It includes a small, high-resolution camera, laser sight and a colour LCD monitor, which can observe and view a target from various vantage points. The video camera enables forces to scan an area prior to pinpointing a target and broadcast the footage directly, in real time, to the operating team behind, or to a monitor at Command Post in the rear. Its head can turn 75 degrees” 

Similar Products

Israel developed a similar weapon called CornerShot in late 2005.

The HD66 is a Chinese replica of CornerShot. Claimed to be a superior product to CornerShot by the PLA, it is stated to have “better man-machine interface, such as people can search the object in proper eye alignment with the Ocular displaying scope.” This makes for “more combat concealment consideration than Cornershot’s LCD display, which possibly exposes the shooter by the screen glisten.

The Krummlauf was a bent barrel designed for the Sturmgewehr 44, which was used by the Germans in World War II. It allowed for looking and firing around corners with its 30 degree barrel and a periscope-style sight.

During one of Iran’s latest gun shows, a replica CornerShot gun was observed as one of Iran’s modern weaponry that is said to be mass produced in the following years.