NASA Is Launching Its First Space-Based Air Pollution Monitor

It’s called TEMPO, which stands for Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution. Built by Ball Aerospace, TEMPO will measure levels of major air pollutants every hour from a geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above the equator. It will monitor a huge region of North America from Canada’s oil sands in northern Alberta to below Mexico City at a resolution of up to 4 square miles. Air pollution poses a major threat to human and planetary health as 99% of the global population breathes air that exceeds WHO health guidelines. Air pollution carries a total economic cost of more than $8 trillion. Therefore, monitoring it is critical to understanding its impacts. Though TEMPO is due to launch in April 2023, watch to learn more about how it will monitor air pollution from space.