The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument is a grating spectrometer, sensitive to visible (VIS) and ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths of light with a spectral range of 290-490 + 540-740 nm and 0.6 nm spectral resolution. The TEMPO instrument is attached to the Earth-facing side of a commercial telecommunications satellite (Intelsat 40e) in geostationary orbit over 91˚ W longitude (about 22,000 miles above Earth’s equator). This allows TEMPO to maintain a continuous view of North America so that the instrument's light-collecting mirror can make a complete east-to-west scan of the field of regard hourly during daylight hours. By measuring sunlight reflected and scattered from the Earth's surface and atmosphere back to the instrument's detectors, TEMPO's ultraviolet and visible light sensors will provide measurements of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and other constituents involved in the chemical dynamics of Earth’s atmosphere.

The primary mission objectives of TEMPO involve understanding the dynamics of air quality, pollution sources, and their impact on climate change. By providing near real-time data and comprehensive atmospheric composition measurements, TEMPO will assist scientists in studying pollution patterns, evaluating the efficacy of environmental policies, and predicting future trends in air quality.

TEMPO was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the commercial Maxar Technologies manufactured communications satellite Intelsat 40e on April 7, 2023. The instrument beamed back its first images on August 2nd, 2023. The TEMPO mission is a collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and NASA, supported by the NASA Science Mission Directorate.

The TEMPO Science Team released a limited set of unvalidated TEMPO data products on February 5, 2024. The primary purpose of this release is for users to become familiar with the file format and contents of TEMPO products. These TEMPO products should be considered preliminary and unvalidated. Users should refrain from making conclusive public statements regarding the science and applications of the TEMPO data products, and the data should not be used in publications or presentations. A readme file describing the released unvalidated data products and associated known issues can be found here.

TEMPO Version 03 (V03) Beta Level 1, 2, and 3 data have reached PROVISIONAL validation status as of December 9, 2024. Please note that there have been no changes to the TEMPO V03 data files themselves; therefore, if users have already downloaded the TEMPO V03 data (previously labeled as Beta), they do not need to re-download the data. These datasets are at provisional maturity, which means that product performance has been demonstrated through a large, but still (seasonally or otherwise) limited number of independent measurements. The analysis is sufficient for limited qualitative determinations of product fitness-for-purpose, and the product is potentially ready for testing by operational users and may be suitable for scientific publication.

User Guides describing the data products in the beta V03 release as well as associated known issues are listed below. The TEMPO Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents (ATBDs) are still being finalized and are available upon request. For access to the ATBDs, please contact the ASDC at larc-dl-asdc-tempo@mail.nasa.gov.

For inquiries about this preliminary TEMPO data release, please post/view questions on the  Earthdata Forum.

Data Services

• Worldview
• ArcGIS image service for TEMPO L3 NO2 troposphere beta imagery
• L2 Subsetting and aggregation ReadMe documents

More information about TEMPO and the services the ASDC provides may be found in the TEMPO storymap

Data User Guides and Technical Documents

• Level 1 User Guide
• O3Tot Level 2 & 3 User Guide
• O3Tot Level 2 & 3 Algorithm Description
• Trace Gas (NO2 & HCHO) & Cloud Level 2 & 3 User Guide
• Operations Log
• Commissioning Log
• Validation Plan
• For the current week's predicted overpass times at selected sites, see OverPass