The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO)

The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument was designed for NASA 's mission to monitor air pollution over North America with high temporal and spatial resolution. It represents a significant advancement in how scientists observe and understand air quality. TEMPO was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 7, 2023, hosted on the Intelsat 40e satellite. TEMPO is mounted on a commercial communications satellite in geostationary orbit (~35,786 km above the equator), allowing it to continuously observe the same area of the Earth, specifically North America, and collect data in near-real-time.