A New Era of Air Quality Monitoring from Space over North America with TEMPO: First Year in Orbit

TEMPO is NASA’s first Earth Venture Instrument (EVI) selected in 2012 and first host payload. It is the first spaceborne instrument providing revolutionary hourly daytime air pollution over North America from Mexico City to the Canadian oil sands, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, at neighborhood scale (~10 km² at boresight). It uses UV/visible spectroscopy (293-493 nm, 538-741 nm) to measure key elements of tropospheric air pollution chemistry including O₃, NO₂, HCHO, SO₂, C₂H₂O₂, and aerosols, and capture the inherent high variability in the diurnal cycle of emissions and chemistry. TEMPO was successfully launched on board IS-40E into the geostationary orbit at 91°W in April 2023. It conducted its first light Earth observations in early August 2023, kicking off a new era of air quality monitoring from space over North America. It started its nominal operation in October 2023 for a 20-month of baseline Phase E. Baseline data products were released to the public in February 2024 for L1 and for most L2/3 in May 2024. TEMPO near-real-time (NRT) and other science quality data products were funded by NASA Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) to assist in air quality forecasting and modeling efforts, and develop better pollution control strategies.

We present a status update of the TEMPO mission including its first-year operation and science highlights, status of baseline data products and upcoming algorithm improvements, implementation of NRT and other enhanced data products, research data products and plan for extending the TEMPO baseline mission.