NASA, SpaceX Launches Device To Monitor Air Pollution From Space

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has launched an instrument that will improve how scientists observe air quality from space. The American space agency in collaboration with Elon Musk's launched an air-quality monitor called TEMPO or Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution Instrument on April 7. 

NASA in a media advisory said, "The NASA-Smithsonian instrument TEMPO is the first space-based tool to monitor major air pollutants hourly in high spatial resolution – down to four square miles – in a region stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Canadian oil sands to below Mexico City, encompassing the entire continental United States."

The American space agency in a post on Twitter said that TEMPO would provide hourly, daytime measurements of air quality in North America. It will monitor three main pollutants and reveal disparities in exposure in our cities and communities. 

Spacecraft separation confirmed! The Intelsat satellite hosting our @NASAEarth & @CenterForAstro#TEMPO mission is flying free from its @SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and on its way to geostationary orbit. pic.twitter.com/gKYczeHqV5

— NASA (@NASA) April 7, 2023

A unique feature of TEMPO, which is about the size of a washing machine and has been described as a chemistry laboratory in space, is that it will be hosted on an Intelsat communications satellite in geostationary orbit, AFP reported. 

"Geostationary orbit is a common orbit for weather satellites and communications satellites, but an air quality instrument measuring gases hadn't been there yet," said Caroline Nowlan, an atmospheric physicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Existing pollution-monitoring satellites are in low Earth orbit, which means they can only provide observations once a day at a fixed time.

"We can get measurements, say, over New York City at 1:30 in the afternoon," Nowlan said. "But that's just one data point over New York City over a day.

"The great thing about TEMPO is that for the first time, we'll be able to make hourly measurements over North America, so we'll be able to see what's happening over a whole day as long as the sun is up."

In geostationary orbit 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometres) above the equator, TEMPO will match the rotation of the Earth, meaning it will stay over the same location -- North America -- at all times.

TEMPO can measure atmospheric pollution down to a spatial resolution of four square miles (10 square kilometres), or neighbourhood level.