The TEMPO Instrument: It’s About Time!

Dennis K Nicks Jr1, Brian Baker2, Laura Hale3, Kelly Chance4, Xiong Liu5, Raid M M Suleiman4, David E Flittner6, Jassim A Al-Saadi7, David M Rosenbaum6, Wendy F Pennington6 and Scott J Janz8, (1)Ball Aerospace, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)Ball Aerospace & Technologies, Boulder, United States, (3)Ball Aerospace & Technologies, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, United States, (5)Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, United States, (6)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, United States, (7)NASA Langley Research Center (retired), Hampton, United States, (8)NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, United States
Abstract:
The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument is part of NASA’s Earth Venture Instrument (EVI) program, and will be the first hosted payload sensor to make tropospheric gas observations from geostationary (GEO) orbit using an ultraviolet/visible spectrometer. The instrument is designed to provide key trace gas measurements important to understanding tropospheric air pollution chemistry. The baseline data products are ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and formaldehyde (H2CO). The TEMPO instrument will provide hourly daylight measurements of these trace gases on urban-regional spatial scales. These remote sensing measurements augment current ground-based air quality measurements and enable improvements in air quality modeling and prediction. The TEMPO project recently completed its Preliminary Design Review (PDR). Current design parameters, instrument performance estimates and technical challenges will be presented.