ESC
Technology Enterprise and Mission Pathfinder Office (TEMPO)
NASA’s Technology Enterprise and Mission Pathfinder Office (TEMPO) was created in to organize, incubate, and infuse mission-enabling communications and navigation technologies and projects. The office manages the innovation pipeline for Goddard’s space communications and navigation capabilities.
TEMPO
Exploration and Space Communications’ (ESC) TEMPO project is an incubator for technologies and projects, nurturing some of NASA’s most ambitious science and technology missions. The TEMPO team undertakes a wide variety of breakthrough efforts in communications and navigation technologies and capabilities. Their portfolio includes incubated projects, pathfinder missions, technology development, and pre-formulation studies. An extension of NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) Program, TEMPO leads mission-enabling concept studies, identifies cross-cutting capability gaps, initiates and oversees technology infusion, performs experiments and evaluations, and applies entrepreneurial methods to deliver results.
How does TEMPO contribute to NASA’s mission?
TEMPO ensures that ESC remains at the forefront of space communications and navigation technologies.
After identifying gaps in communications and navigation capabilities, the TEMPO team invests in technologies that can close these gaps. The team gets projects off the ground by presenting the technology's benefits, securing funding, creating a development team, and formulating a plan and schedule. The TEMPO team provides guidance and advice for these incubated projects until they have reached a maturation level to be used in operational NASA missions. TEMPO champions the use of Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) Bundle Protocol into NASA's communications architecture to extend internet-like capabilities to space, where end-to-end links may be unavailable or limited. TEMPO is working with NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean and Ecosystem (PACE) mission, which will be the first space-based operational use of DTN through NASA's Near Space Network.
TEMPO is an incubator for cutting-edge communications projects.
An example of a TEMPO-incubated project is the Laser-Enhanced Mission Communication Navigation and Operational Services (LEMNOS) Pipeline, which started in TEMPO to develop an optical communications terminal for the upcoming Artemis missions. After months of guidance, the LEMNOS team became its own project, independent of TEMPO. Additionally, TEMPO recently incubated the new Lunar Communications Relay and Navigation Systems (LCRNS) project, which became its own project in January 2022. LCRNS is managing the acquisition and implementation of lunar relay services to support the Artemis Moon missions.
TEMPO executes missions and projects that increase communications and navigation technology readiness levels.
Often, these missions are further proving a capability or technology that has been studied but needs further investigation. To prove and test Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) capabilities on the Moon, ESC developed the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) in partnership with the Italian Space Agency. In January 2025, LuGRE flew on a Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission delivered by Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas. NASA landed LuGRE in Mare Crisium, a basin on the Moon spanning about 460 miles. On March 2, 2025, LuGRE received the first GNSS fix ever recorded on the Moon from both GPS and Galileo, the GNSS operated by the European Union. The payload’s data will be used to develop operational lunar GNSS systems for future missions to the Moon.
TEMPO's mission is to infuse advanced technologies in mission architectures.
Their work focuses on high-performance links, including enhanced radio frequency communications, optical communications, and quantum communications, as well as improved networking methods. One of TEMPO's original goals was to increase the technology readiness level of optical communications. The office conducted studies, wrote papers, attended conferences, and chartered a technology roadmap to infuse optical into architectures. Now, multiple NASA missions plan to use optical communications alongside radio frequency to receive more data from space.
TEMPO-led developments include laser and quantum communications studies.
The TEMPO team led development of NASA's TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) system, which launched on May 25, 2022 as a hosted payload on the Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator 3 CubeSat. TBIRD is demonstrating 200 gigabit per second downlinks – the highest optical downlink NASA has ever achieved! TBIRD will show that optical is a viable option for science missions near-Earth. TEMPO is applying this same infusion strategy to quantum communications. TEMPO established the M2.0 study to enable an intercontinental quantum network, to help realize national strategic goals like intercontinental quantum entanglement distribution. These innovations could enable improved security, enhanced timing architectures, and serve as key infrastructure for a future quantum internet.
A TEMPO study resulted in LunaNet, NASA's plan to bring internet-like capabilities to the Moon.
In response to a 2019 call for lunar communications and navigation architectures, TEMPO led a multi-disciplinary study team at Goddard Space Flight Center. The LunaNet architecture leverages Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking and other innovative capabilities to create a flexible, extensible, and interoperable lunar communications and navigation architecture. LunaNet will enable the Artemis program while providing a platform for NASA to build out network services further into the solar system. LunaNet will provide users with four services: networking; positioning, navigation and timing; detection and information; and science. With LunaNet in place, users will experience an operational environment similar to that experienced by internet users on Earth. LunaNet is intended to be entirely interoperable and will be created by NASA, other government agencies, academic institutions, and the commercial aerospace industry.
LunaNet: Enhancing Connectivity at the Moon
With Artemis, NASA will establish a long-term presence at the Moon, opening more of the lunar surface to exploration than ever before. This growth of lunar activity will require new, more robust communications, navigation, and networking capabilities. NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program has developed the LunaNet architecture to meet these needs.
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TEMPO Resources
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