The Air Quality Mission of the NASA Tropospheric Emission Monitoring Mission (TEMPO), Launched Early ‘Before the Air Shower’
This is not NASA’s first foray into environmental surveillance, of course. The Ozone layer has been measured for decades, and the agency has been monitoring it since the 1990s with small aircraft flying over the ocean, rainforests, and parts of Africa. Earth scientist Barry Lefer is manager of NASA’s Tropospheric Composition Program, which studies the chemical makeup of pollutants in the atmosphere underneath the ozone layer. The transition to urban air quality is new.
The NASA air quality mission called TEMPO, short for Tropospheric Emission Monitoring, launched early this morning. Unlike previous Earth-observing satellites, it will be locked in ageostationary position and will be able to observe a single part of the globe. For the first time, TEMPO will let NASA make hourly daytime observations of nitrogen dioxide, ozone, formaldehyde, and more across North America, including the continental United States, the Caribbean islands, and most of Canada and Mexico. The data that was taken frequently enough to see the spikes during rush hour traffic, Lefer says, is what they will get from sunrise to sunset.
SpaceX Space Shuttle Launches a Satellite Satellite to Support Research and Astronomy in a Low-Density Region, as Revealed by the State of the Air
According to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report, three of eight Americans live in counties with anF grade for smog. And that burden tends to fall along racial and economic lines. According to the report, people of color are 3.6 times more likely than white people to live in a county with multiple failing grades for pollution. Across the country, lower-income communities tend to have more air pollution.
“We’ve known that oil refineries or chemical plants tend to be situated in lower-income neighborhoods; one of the reasons the property values are lower is due to poor air quality. John Haynes, the lead for TEMpo program applications at NASA, said it had never had ground-based monitors located in every neighborhood to confirm it.
The blind spots are supposed to be rid of by TEMpo. The light that comes back into space will be measured by it. Scientists can tell the differences by the unique wavelength of light they reflect.
The hosted payload is called TEMPO and it is carried by a private satellite. This is a new business model that NASA hopes will make it cheaper to send its instruments into orbit, the agency said in a press briefing this week.
SpaceX’s Falcon9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 12:30AM ET on Friday with the satellite carrying TEMPO. The main purpose of Intelsat 40e is to provide internet service to planes and cruise ships.
20 Years of the Clean Air: How John and the Rest of the World Lived in the Shadows of a Public Air Pollution Monitor
When he moved to Washington, D.C. 20 years ago, John said he could see the pollution from the rooftop of NASA headquarters. There was a cloud of smoke going all the way out into Virginia.
They want a detailed portrait of what is in the sky, and how it got there, one that can only be achieved with ground-based pollution monitors. Seventy-nine percent of US counties lack an Environmental Protection Agency monitor on the ground, so that information isn’t representative of the air most Americans are breathing. Data from other parts of the world is even more sparse.