A New Era of Air Quality Monitoring from Space over North America with TEMPO:Mission Status from Early Years in Orbit

We present a status overview of the TEMPO mission including its operation, validation and
status of baseline data products and recent algorithm improvements, development of Near-Real-
Time (NRT) and other research data products, science and application highlights.
TEMPO is the North America component of the geostationary (GEO) air quality constellation
along with GEMS over Asia and Sentinel-4 over Europe. It is the first spaceborne instrument
providing hourly daytime air pollution over North America at neighborhood scale (~10 km 2 at
boresight). It uses UV/visible spectroscopy to measure key elements of tropospheric air pollution
chemistry including O 3 , NO 2 , HCHO and aerosols, and capture the inherent high variability in the
diurnal cycle of emissions and chemistry. At night, TEMPO can observe city lights, gas flaring,
maritime lights, clouds and snow in the moonlight, lightning, aurorae, and nightglow without
interfering with its primary daytime air quality mission. After the successful launch of TEMPO
on board IS-40E into the GEO orbit at 91W in April 2023, it conducted its first light
observations in early Aug. 2023 and started its nominal operation in Oct. 2023, kicking off a new
era of air quality monitoring from space over North America. It finished its 20-month of baseline
Phase E in June 2025. The baseline mission has been extended to Sep. 2026, with further
extension via a NASA senior review in early 2026. Baseline V3 data products were released to
the public in May 2024 from NASA’s ASDC. A significantly improved V4 data products were
released to the public in early Sep. 2025, including the first public release of the ozone profile
product. TEMPO NRT data products with data latency of 2-3 hours 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. NRT
products (V2, based on baseline V4) were also released to the public for the first time in early
Sep. 2025. Many other research data products have been produced by the science community and
TEMPO data products have been widely used by the user community including nearly 700 early
adopters.