In a significant step towards monitoring air quality with unprecedented accuracy, NASA has launched a new instrument that can track major air pollutants in areas as small as four square miles.
The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will revolutionize the way scientists observe air quality from space, improving life on Earth.
TEMPO will be the first space-based instrument to measure air quality over North America hourly during the daytime and at spatial regions of several square miles, far better than the US’s existing limits of about 100 square miles.
The data will play an important role in the scientific analysis of pollution, including studies of rush hour pollution, the potential for improved air quality alerts, the effects of lightning on ozone, the movement of pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, and even the effects of fertilizer application.
TEMPO, which was built by Ball Aerospace and integrated onto Intelsat 40E by Maxar, was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The instrument is a payload on the satellite Intelsat 40E, which separated from the rocket about 32 minutes after launch. From a fixed geostationary orbit above the equator, TEMPO will form part of an air quality satellite virtual constellation that will track pollution around the Northern Hemisphere.
TEMPO observations will dramatically improve the scientific data record on air pollution, including ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and formaldehyde, not only over the continental United States but also in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Bahamas, and part of the island of Hispaniola. TEMPO commissioning activities will begin in late May or early June.
Source: NASA
