TEMPO

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has completed a critical design review of Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument.

Tempo is said to be Nasa’s first earth venture instrument with a UV-visible air quality spectrometer, which will fly in geostationary orbit.

The instrument will enable high spatial and temporal resolution, and precise measurements of atmospheric pollution over North America.

It will use ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to monitor Earth’s atmosphere, and determine concentrations of key atmospheric pollutants, including ozone, nitrogen dioxide and formaldehyde.

Tempo will be integrated on an unidentified commercial satellite as a hosted payload, Ball Aerospace said.

"It will use ultraviolet and visible wavelengths to monitor Earth’s atmosphere, and determine concentrations of key atmospheric pollutants."

The completed review confirms the integrity of the design, and its capabilities within mission requirements.

Ball civil space and technology business unit vice-president and general manager Jim Oschmann said: "Ball Aerospace is teaming closely with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Nasa’s Langley Research Center to deliver a sensor that meets science requirements, while keeping within the earth venture mission cost cap."

In collaboration with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), the company is developing a geostationary UV-visible spectrometer, and the geostationary environment monitoring spectrometer (GEMS).

Ball Aerospace & Technologies manufactures spacecraft, advanced instruments and sensors, components, data exploitation systems and RF solutions for strategic, tactical and scientific applications.

Image: An artistic view of Tempo instrument in operation. Photo: courtesy of Ball Aerospace.