Liftoff! At 12:30 a.m. EDT, SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket took off the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, beginning its around hour-long journey to deliver the Intelsat 40e, in addition to NASAs Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, into orbit. Credit: SpaceX
A NASA instrument to provide unprecedented resolution of keeping an eye on significant air toxins– down to four square miles– lifted off on its method to geostationary orbit at 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday, April 7, 2023. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument will enhance life on Earth by reinventing the way scientists observe air quality from area.
” The TEMPO mission has to do with more than just studying contamination– its about enhancing life on Earth for all. By keeping an eye on the effects of everything from rush-hour traffic to contamination from forest fires and volcanoes, NASA data will help improve air quality across North America and secure our world,” stated NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
NASAs Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument introduced 12:30 a.m. EDT Friday, April 7 as a payload on Intelsat 40E aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Credit: NASA
NASAs TEMPO released from Cape Canaveral Space Force 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. Signal acquisition happened at 1:14 a.m. TEMPO commissioning activities will begin in late May or early June.
At 12:30 a.m. EDT, SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket lifted off the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, starting its approximately hour-long journey to provide the Intelsat 40e, along with NASAs Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, into orbit. NASAs TEMPO launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.” NASA makes data from instruments like TEMPO easily accessible to everybody,” said Karen St. Germain, division director for NASAs Earth Sciences Division. “After working on the TEMPO for more than 10 years, it is about time to introduce TEMPO to produce genuine TEMPO data and start the brand-new period of air quality monitoring over North America.”
From its geostationary orbit– a high Earth orbit that enables satellites to match Earths rotation– TEMPO likewise will form part of an air quality satellite virtual constellation that will track pollution around the Northern Hemisphere.
On Friday, April 7 at 12:30 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 released the Intelsat IS-40e objective to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This was the fourth launch and landing of this booster, which formerly supported CRS-26, OneWeb Launch 16, and one Starlink objective. Credit: SpaceX
From a repaired geostationary orbit above the equator, TEMPO will be the first space-based instrument to determine air quality over North America per hour during the daytime and at spatial areas of numerous square miles– far much better than existing limits of about 100 square miles in the U.S. TEMPO information will play an important function in the clinical analysis of contamination, consisting of research studies of rush hour contamination, the potential for enhanced air quality notifies, the effects of lightning on ozone, the motion of contamination from forest fires and volcanoes, and even the impacts of fertilizer application.
Graphic overview of TEMPO objective. Credit: NASA/SAO
” NASA makes data from instruments like TEMPO easily available to everyone,” stated Karen St. Germain, division director for NASAs Earth Sciences Division. “Which indicates that everybody from neighborhood and market leaders to asthma patients are going to be able to gain access to air quality information at a greater level of detail– in both time and place– than theyve ever had the ability to previously. Which likewise supplies the details required to begin dealing with among the most important human health challenges.”
TEMPOs observations will dramatically enhance the clinical data record on air contamination– including ozone, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde– not only over the continental United States, however likewise Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Bahamas, and part of the island of Hispaniola.
Pace will introduce into geostationary orbit 22,236 miles above Earths equator in 2022 as a payload on Intelsat 40e. Credit: Maxar Technologies
” Our TEMPO slogan is Its about time, which tips at TEMPOs capability to offer per hour air contamination data,” said Xiong Liu, deputy principal detective for TEMPO at the Center for Astrophysics|Harvard & & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “After dealing with the TEMPO for more than ten years, it is about time to launch TEMPO to produce real TEMPO information and start the brand-new period of air quality monitoring over North America.”
From its geostationary orbit– a high Earth orbit that allows satellites to match Earths rotation– TEMPO also will form part of an air quality satellite virtual constellation that will track contamination around the Northern Hemisphere. South Koreas Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer, the very first instrument in the constellation, launched into space in 2020 on the Korean Aerospace Research Institute GEO-KOMPSAT-2B satellite, and is determining contamination over Asia. The ESA (European Space Agency) Sentinel-4 satellite, arranged to introduce in 2024, will make measurements over Europe and North Africa.
TEMPO will provide the first-ever per hour daytime observation of atmospheric pollution at high spatial resolution over higher North America. This unprecedented protection is expected to transform air quality forecasting, along with provide significant new insights into various fields, consisting of climate science and agriculture.
” This marks a new age in our ability to observe air pollution over North America, including the entire continental United States,” stated Barry Lefer, TEMPO project researcher and tropospheric composition program manager for NASA. “Its also unlocking for us to work more carefully with our worldwide partners to much better comprehend international air quality and its transport.”
The instrument was constructed by Ball Aerospace and incorporated onto Intelsat 40E by Maxar.