NASA’s high-resolution air quality control instrument launches

A NASA instrument to supply unprecedented decision of monitoring main air pollution—all the way down to 4 sq. miles—lifted off on its approach to geostationary orbit at 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Air pollution (TEMPO) instrument will enhance life on Earth by revolutionizing the way in which scientists observe air high quality from space.

“The TEMPO mission is about extra than simply finding out air pollution—it is about bettering life on Earth for all. By monitoring the results of every thing from rush-hour visitors to air pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, NASA information will assist enhance air high quality throughout North America and shield our planet,” mentioned NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson.

NASA’s TEMPO launched from Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The instrument is a payload on the satellite Intelsat 40E, which separated from the rocket roughly 32 minutes after launch. Sign acquisition occurred at 1:14 a.m. TEMPO commissioning actions will start in late Could or early June.

From a set geostationary orbit above the equator, TEMPO would be the first space-based instrument to measure air high quality over North America hourly throughout the daytime and at spatial areas of a number of sq. miles—much better than current limits of about 100 sq. miles within the U.S. TEMPO information will play an essential position within the scientific evaluation of air pollution, together with research of rush hour air pollution, the potential for improved air high quality alerts, the results of lightning on ozone, the motion of air pollution from forest fires and volcanoes, and even the results of fertilizer utility.

“NASA makes information from devices like TEMPO simply accessible to everybody,” mentioned Karen St. Germain, division director for NASA’s Earth Sciences Division. “Which signifies that everybody from group and business leaders to bronchial asthma victims are going to have the ability to entry air high quality info at a better stage of element—in each time and site—than they’ve ever been in a position to earlier than. And that additionally gives the knowledge wanted to begin addressing one of the vital urgent human well being challenges.”

TEMPO’s observations will dramatically enhance the scientific information file on air air pollution—together with ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde—not solely over the continental United States, but additionally Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Bahamas, and a part of the island of Hispaniola.

“Our TEMPO slogan is ‘It is about time,’ which hints at TEMPO’s capability to supply hourly air air pollution information,” mentioned Xiong Liu, deputy principal investigator for TEMPO on the Heart for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “After engaged on the TEMPO for greater than 10 years, it’s about time to launch TEMPO to supply actual TEMPO information and begin the brand new period of air high quality monitoring over North America.”

From its geostationary orbit—a excessive Earth orbit that permits satellites to match Earth’s rotation—TEMPO additionally will type a part of an air quality satellite virtual constellation that can monitor air pollution across the Northern Hemisphere. South Korea’s Geostationary Atmosphere Monitoring Spectrometer, the primary instrument within the constellation, launched into space in 2020 on the Korean Aerospace Analysis Institute GEO-KOMPSAT-2B satellite, and is measuring air pollution over Asia. The ESA (European Area Company) Sentinel-4 satellite, scheduled to launch in 2024, will make measurements over Europe and North Africa.

“This marks a brand new period in our capability to watch air air pollution over North America, together with your complete continental United States,” mentioned Barry Lefer, TEMPO program scientist and tropospheric composition program supervisor for NASA. “It is also opening the door for us to work extra intently with our worldwide companions to higher perceive international air high quality and its transport.”

The instrument was constructed by Ball Aerospace and built-in onto Intelsat 40E by Maxar.