Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO)

About Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution:

• It will monitor major air pollutants across North America.
• Observations:
  • It will make important scientific observations, including that of ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and formaldehyde levels.
  • It is capable of measuring air quality over North America hourly during the daytime with a resolution of several square miles.
  • It monitors the effects of everything from rush-hour traffic to pollution from forest fires and volcanoes.
  • The present pollution-monitoring satellites are in low Earth orbit (LEO), but this new monitoring instrument is hosted in geostationary orbit.
• After this launch NASA has joined South Korea’s Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer and the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-4 satellite to become an air quality monitoring satellite constellation.

 

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Q1) What is the troposphere?

The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere, which extends from the surface up to an average height of about 7-20 kilometers (4-12 miles), depending on the location and season.

Source: SpaceX launches NASA’s TEMPO air quality monitoring instrument