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NASA Communications

NASA Sets 2022 Launch For Air Quality Sensor That Will Provide Hourly Updates Across North America 40

Posted by BeauHD from the coming-soon-to-a-geostationary-orbit-near-you dept.
NASA is launching a new air quality measurement tool aboard a Maxar 1300-class satellite to help improve air quality forecasting. Called "TEMPO," which stands for Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, the new tool will provide hourly measurements of the levels of gases in the atmosphere over North America, including ozone, nitrogen dioxide and aerosols. TechCrunch reports: The TEMPO tool won't launch until 2022, however, which is when the Maxar satellite, called Intelsat 40e, is set to be delivered to geostationary orbit. It's not uncommon for NASA to host its scientific payloads on commercial communications satellites, providing an opportunity for NASA to effectively hitch a ride on a large geostationary satellite that'll cover the territory it wants to cover, while offering significant cost savings versus putting up a dedicated spacecraft. Ball Aerospace developed the TEMPO instrument for NASA, and it'll be transported to Maxar's Palo Alto-based satellite manufacturing facility for incorporation into the Intelsat 40e vehicle ahead of its scheduled launch. The instrument will also be used alongside other tools, including one from the European Space Agency, and South Korea's Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer, which will all combine to provide a more comprehensive and detailed picture of air quality across the northern hemisphere.
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NASA Sets 2022 Launch For Air Quality Sensor That Will Provide Hourly Updates Across North America More

NASA Sets 2022 Launch For Air Quality Sensor That Will Provide Hourly Updates Across North America

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  • I wonder (Score:5)

    by jmccue ( 834797 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @08:55PM (#59687600) Homepage
    I wonder how long the current US Gov will take before it starts skewing the results, and forbid publishing of numbers that look bad.
    • That's China where they forbid publishing the ppm numbers.
      • Uh oh, some Chinese troll modded down the facts. Sorry, buddy, it's true. Try again. Burn all your mod points right here if you like, I'll keep reposting because I categorical oppose the evil dictatorial Chinese fascist government.

        • Uh oh, some Chinese troll modded down the facts. Sorry, buddy, it's true.

          How do you know that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but what is your source?

          • I was there. The numbers float about the ex pat community, the gvt denies them and says everything is fine, no official numbers get published, the ones that do come from places like the sensor on the US embassy compound.

      • That's China where they forbid publishing the ppm numbers.

        Well, just look at how bad the numbers are at the west end of Seoul, and you can understand why. The fucking ocean air that blows onto South Korea is still at hazard levels.

        You have no idea the sacrifices necessary to bring me my kpop.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by U0K ( 6195040 )
        China does do that. No question. But that is offtopic and irrelevant to the statement of GP because this is not the fucking Highlander franchise where there can be only one!

        The current administration in the US also hasn't been very honest with these things so far either. It's not a competition about who is the biggest liar and everyone else should be ignored.
        The current US administration tried to suppress quite a bit of information that does not fit their environmental narrative according to what we've r

        • this is not the fucking Highlander franchise where there can be only one!

          And even if they promise you that there can be only one, there still write it the way that the are actually more of them because otherwise the series would be boring.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re "skewing"? Nothing as creative as that... all US data is raw, pure and real... the trick is in the location of the working collector...
      How to do this if making a fictional movie script about a bad gov:
      Just place the units for that state in the nice air area.
      Average over a state and never have to worry about "bad" numbers as they never got into the stats...
      A nice GUI to click on and it "zooms" that area... looks like science and math... and get the same great results state wide... in real time...
      N

    • If you see a big fuzzy dot in the middle of the map, that's the CowboyNeal Zone.

    • they wont need to pad the numbers, a "software glitch" will handle that

  • What's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fredrated ( 639554 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @09:02PM (#59687614) Journal

    Trump doesn't want good quality air, that's why he is destroying the EPA.

    • Exactly! I am going to vote for Trump because I want to breath toxic air and poisoned water and eat chemically coated food from polluted earth and I love Russia and fascism! *eye roll*
      The epa had gone deep into over reach territory, way past its mandate and had become highly politicized. Of course they got rolled back a small amount on a handful of zillions of regulations.

  • I could see EPA or NOAA managing such a satellite.

    Why does this National Aeronautics and Space Administration have a role other than launch management?

    • Because NASA are still professionals reasonably uninflected by politics whereas the epa and noaa are both hives of scum and villainy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by schwit1 ( 797399 )

        This is the same NASA managing the SLS, aka Senate Launch System, aka rocket to nowhere?

        • Pork barrel is different than doing flat out bad science. I don't think pork barrel is good, no, of course not, but at least any science produced isn't pre-corrupted.

        • This is the same NASA managing the SLS, aka Senate Launch System, aka rocket to nowhere?

          Bad ideas out of Congress should not be counted against NASA. They where given the task of polishing this turd, and I believe that they are doing about as well as they could do.

          NASA should not be designing rockets, anymore than the FAA should be designing airplanes. Well, that's not entirely true. NASA has a mandate to advance the sciences behind space exploration. This will require some incidental engineering and building of rockets. What they should not be doing is what private industry could do bett

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      They have the experts to fly around in "jets" and sample the air from different parts of the USA at different heights...
      Look for clean air, nuclear testing... anything thats in the air. Fast computers work on the math.. and wonderful art work to explain the science result..to the wider US population.
      Why? Its 100% civilian (dont mention the U2 spy plane history)... its their day job...

    • I could see EPA or NOAA managing such a satellite.

      Why does this National Aeronautics and Space Administration have a role other than launch management?

      Don't be a nitwit, the job of managing a satellite is about the satellite, not about whatever you're using the data for.

    • Why is it NASA’s job to launch and maintain a satellite? I think the question contains your answer. Certainly NASA will provide data to and collaborate with the EPA and NOAA but I think handling the satellite is within their role.

  • More complete explanation: (Score:5, Informative)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Monday February 03, 2020 @09:19PM (#59687642) Homepage
    How will they do that? More complete explanation:
    Ball Aerospace TEMPO web page [ball.com].

    From the Ball Aerospace TEMPO PDF file linked on that web page [ball.com]:

    "TEMPO utilizes a geostationary ultraviolet/visible (UV/Vis) spectrometer to provide regional, hourly measurements of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, formaldehyde and aerosols during daylight hours. For the first time, the spectrometer will provide Earth scientists with high resolution and frequency observations from Mexico City to Canada, and from coast to coast. The instrument will track pollution at micro urban scales (an area approximating 1.25 by 2.8 miles), improving air quality prediction accuracy by an expected 50 percent."

  • Will be interesting to see how he spins these numbers.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 )

      He'll ignore them, lie about them or move the funding to build more of the wall, though he probably will need the scientists to predict wind speed and direction so the fucking thing doesn't blow down.

    • If FOX covers it Trump will find out and stop it; that is, if he's not distracted by staff before he stops it as a "waste of money." It will only take 1 timed spin about it covertly being a global warming sat promoted by China...

      The less crazy GOP froze a done ready to launch sat simply because Al Gore was behind it - that was 20 years ago.

    • Will be interesting to see how he spins these numbers.

      What's there to spin? America's air quality has been improving for a very long time. Even America's CO2 emissions are lower than the peak in 2007.

      If Trump wanted to "spin" the numbers then why wouldn't he just not launch the satellite to begin with? If he didn't want the people to know about some supposed air quality problems then it would seem easier to just not go through the effort to collect the numbers in the first place. If he's going to make up numbers then why launch a satellite that can prove t

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