The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, designed and built by Ball Aerospace for NASA, has completed spectrometer testing and verification.

TEMPO was selected by NASA as the first Earth Venture-Instrument to provide hourly measurements of air quality across North America. This instrument will make precise measurements of the key constituents of air pollution, including nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide and atmospheric aerosols that have the greatest impact on human health and agriculture productivity.

"The completion of characterization and calibration of the TEMPO spectrometer is a critical milestone in the development of our fundamental atmospheric pollution mission, which is a result of collaboration among Ball Aerospace, NASA's Langley Research Center, and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory" said Kelly Chance, TEMPO Principal Investigator, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

"Together, we are all looking forward to the next steps on the way to providing hourly atmospheric pollution measurements for greater North America."

Data from TEMPO will provide chemical weather maps of air pollutants that can be overlaid onto a map of the continental United States.

TEMPO is expected to improve air quality prediction accuracy by 50 percent and improve daylight measurements of atmospheric pollutants across the nation. This instrument will enable high-confidence forecasts of poor air quality events so vulnerable citizens such as asthma sufferers, the elderly and young children can take proper precautions, and aid farmers in making decisions to maximize crop yields.

"Ball is leveraging our over 40-year heritage in Earth-observing instruments to partner with NASA and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory on TEMPO," said Jim Oschmann, Vice President and General Manager for Civil Space, Ball Aerospace.

"This instrument provides significant advances in our ability to measure and understand major air pollutants, and it demonstrates an innovative and low cost approach to space-based, science-driven missions that broaden our understanding of the Earth system."

TEMPO will leverage the Air Force's Hosted Payloads Solutions (HoPS) contract, a service the Air Force uses to match payloads with commercial hosts, such as communications satellites that will fly in geostationary orbits. NASA Langley, located in Hampton, Virginia, manages the TEMPO Mission and will procure the spacecraft host. The launch date is yet to be determined.

Tweet

Experts set to meet in Kenya on space science
Nairobi (XNA) Sep 22, 2017
More than 200 scientists from across the world are set to attend a three-day international conference on space science in Nairobi next week, organizers said on Wednesday. The Sept. 27-29 conference, organized by the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD), is expected to offer opportunity for countries in fast tracking decision making in their application of earth ... read more

Related Links
Ball Aerospace
Earth Observation News - Suppiliers, Technology and Application

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only