WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. (AP) - Virginia's Eastern Shore is being used as a launch site for a NASA mission to study tropical cyclones.
The federal space agency is sending unmanned scientific aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean to study the cyclones and what causes them to intensify into hurricanes.
Flights are set to begin in early September and continue into October at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
An aircraft that flew over Hurricane Leslie in the Atlantic Ocean landed at the facility on Friday.
Officials say the five-year Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel mission will use aerial vehicles equipped with instruments to survey the overall environment of the storms. The aircraft also will look into the inner core of hurricanes to study their structure and processes.
