MUMBAI: NASA will host a Google+ Hangout from several NASA centers at 2 p.m. EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) on 23 July as the agency prepares to fly two unmanned aircraft over Atlantic Ocean hurricanes this summer.

NASA‘s Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3‘s mission is a five-year project that first took to the field in 2012 from NASA‘s Wallops flight facility at Wallops Island. HS3 is investigating the roles of the large-scale environment and storm-scale internal processes in hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic basin. HS3 scientists will use two NASA Global Hawk aircraft during the campaign, one with instruments measuring the environment around a tropical cyclone and the other with instruments looking into the storms.

Participants in the Hangout will hear about the 2012 mission and preparations underway at Wallops for the upcoming flights. The HS3 lead scientist will explain how NASA will peer into hurricanes and a Global Hawk pilot will discuss remote flying over tropical cyclones.

Panelists for the Google+ Hangout are NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center HS3 principal investigator Scott Braun, NASA‘s Dryden Flight Research Center Global Hawk pilot Tom Miller, NASA‘s Ames Research Center HS3 project manager Marilyn Vasques and rosenstiel school of marine and atmospheric science senior research associate Brian McNoldy .

Google+ Hangouts allow as many as 10 people or group chat, while thousands more can watch the conversation live on Google+ or YouTube. The Hangout will also be carried live on NASA Television and the agency‘s website.

NASA‘s social media followers can submit questions on Google+ or Twitter in advance and during the event using #askNASAHS3. Before the Hangout begins, NASA will open a thread on its Facebook page where questions may be posted.