NASA announced earlier this month that the agency's unmanned Global Hawk aircraft, developed by Northrop Grumman, completed a series of four science flights over the Pacific Ocean back in April as part of the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) mission, a joint project between NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The GloPac mission flights were designed to collect data in the stratosphere. Fitted with 11 science instruments, Global Hawk acquired and transmitted data that has never before been accessible through either manned flights or satellites. Flights reached up to 65,000 feet where information was collected from the air as well as the water and polar ice below.

 

Flights ranged from north of the Arctic Circle, over polar ice, down to Hawaii near the equator. NASA Global Hawk completed 82.5 flight hours, with one particular flight lasting 28.6 hours, eight hours of which was spent north of Alaska over the polar ice.