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 are available as of May 20, 2024. These datasets are at beta maturity, meaning the product is minimally validated but may still contain significant errors; it is based on product quick looks using the initial calibration parameters. Because the products at this stage have minimal validation, users should refrain from making conclusive public statements regarding science and applications of the data products until a product is designated at the provisional validation status.

For inquiries about this preliminary TEMPO data release, please contact larc-dl-asdc-tempo@mail.nasa.gov or 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
• For the current week's predicted overpass times at selected sites, see OverPass