Amazonas 2, the most modern satellite covering the Americas, has facilitated communications for the GRIP mission.
HISPASAT, the Spanish communications satellite operator, has been chosen by NASA to participate in the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) mission to do research on hurricanes. The goal of the mission is to better understand how tropical storms are formed, and their subsequent transformation into hurricanes.
HISPASAT Group’s Amazonas 2 satellite, situated at the 61º West orbital position, covers the pan-American region (including the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego) and has 64 transponders (54 in Ku-band and 10 in C-band). The satellite has enabled communication between the Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California. That experiment, carried out during six weeks, demonstrated the innovative opportunities for exploring new scientific frontiers offered by both satellites—with their wide coverage—and UAVs, with their considerable range of flight.
The mission was able to place the Global Hawk on top of Hurricane Earl when it was already fully formed, which represented a historic milestone in the study of these meteorological phenomena. HISPASAT’s Amazonas 2 facilitated the necessary communications in order to allow scientists to carry out a real time analysis of the data.