| Instrument | Status/
Accuracy | Instrument Description | Measurement Technology | Timeline |
ABI
Advanced Baseline Imager | Operational
| Detects clouds, cloud properties, water vapour, land and sea surface temperatures, dust, aerosols, volcanic ash, fires, total ozone, snow and ice cover, vegetation index. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer |  |
AGRI
Advanced Geosynchronous Radiation Imager | Operational
| A multiple channel radiation imager, one of the primary instruments aboard FY-4. Technically featured by a precisely designed two-mirror structure, capable of accurate and flexible sensing in two dimensions, and minute-level fast sector scanning. Frequent Earth imaging over 14 bands with off-axis three reflections of the primary optic system. On-board black body available for IR calibrations at very short time intervals. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
AHI
Advanced Himawari Imager | Operational
| Measures cloud cover, cloud motion, cloud height, cloud properties, water vapour, rainfalll, sea surface temperatures and Earth radiation, dust, aerosols, volcanic ash, fires, snow and ice cover. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
AIRS
Atmospheric Infra-red Sounder | Operational
| High spectral resolution measurement of temperature and humidity profiles in the atmosphere. Long-wave Earth surface emissivity. Cloud diagnostics. Trace gas profiles. Surface temperatures. | Medium-resolution IR spectrometer | |
AVHRR/3
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/3 | Operational
| Measurements of land and sea surface temperature, cloud cover, snow and ice cover, soil moisture and vegetation indices. Data also used for volcanic eruption monitoring. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
EPIC
Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera | Operational
| Diurnal measurements of ozone, sulfur dioxide, UV surface radiation, clouds, aerosols and vegetation. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
ETM+
Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus | Operational
| Measures surface radiance and emittance, land cover state, and change (e.g., vegetation type). Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications. | n/a | |
IASI
Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer | Operational
+/-10 % | Measures tropospheric moisture and temperature, column integrated contents of ozone, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other minor gases which affect tropospheric chemistry. Also measures sea surface and land temperature. | Medium-resolution IR spectrometer | |
IIR
Imaging Infrared Radiometer | Operational
| Radiometer optimised for combined IIR/lidar retrievals of cirrus particle size. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
IKFS-2
IR-Fourier spectrometer | Operational
| Atmospheric temperature/humidity profiles, data on cloud parameters, water vapour & ozone column amounts, surface temperature. | n/a | |
MISR
Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer | Operational
| Measurements of global surface albedo, aerosol and vegetation properties. Also provides multi-angle bidirectional data (1% angle-to-angle accuracy) for cloud cover and reflectances at the surface and aerosol opacities. Global and local modes. | n/a | |
MODIS
MODerate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer | Operational
| Data on biological and physical processes on the surface of the Earth and in the lower atmosphere, and on global dynamics. Surface temperatures of land and ocean, chlorophyll fluorescence, land cover measurements, cloud cover (day and night). | n/a | |
MSU-GS
Multispectral scanning imager-radiometer | Operational
| Measurements of cloud cover, cloud top height, precipitation, cloud motion, albedo, vegetation, convection, air mass analysis, tropopause monitoring, stability monitoring, total ozone and surface temperature, fire detection. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
MSU-GS/VE
Multispectral scanning imager-radiometer | Operational
| Operational metrology, hydrology, climate monitoring and environmental monitoring | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
OLCI
Ocean and Land Colour Imager | Operational
| Marine and land services. | n/a | |
OLI
Operational Land Imager | Operational
| Measures surface radiance, land cover state, and change (e.g., vegetation type). Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications. | n/a | |
OLI-2
Operational Land Imager 2 | Operational
| Measures surface radiance, land cover state, and change (e.g., vegetation type). Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications. | n/a | |
OLS
Operational Linescan System | Operational
| Day and night cloud cover imagery. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
SEVIRI
Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infra-Red Imager | Operational
| Measurements of cloud cover, cloud top height, precipitation, cloud motion, vegetation, radiation fluxes, convection, air mass analysis, cirrus cloud discrimination, tropopause monitoring, stability monitoring, total ozone and sea surface temperature. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
SGLI
Second-generation Global Imager | Operational
+/-15 % | Medium resolution multi-spectral imaging of land, ocean and atmosphere. SGLI-VNR is an optical sensor capable of multi-channel nadir observation at wavelengths from near-UV to NIR and forward or backward polarization observation at red and near infrared wavelengths (Push-broom scanning). SGLI-IRS is an optical sensor capable of multi-channel nadir observation at wavelengths from SWIR to TIR wavelengths (Cross-track scanning). | n/a | |
Sounder
Sounder | Operational
| Atmospheric soundings and data on atmospheric stability and thermal gradient winds. | n/a | |
TANSO-CAI
Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observation - Cloud and Aerosol Imager | Operational
| Detection and correction of cloud and aerosol for TANSO-FTS. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
TANSO-CAI-2
Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observation - Cloud and Aerosol Imager-2 | Operational
| Detection and correction of cloud and aerosol for TANSO-FTS, aerosol characteristics | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
TIRS
Thermal Infrared Sensor | Operational
| Measures longwave thermal infrared surface emittance, land cover state, and change. Used as multipurpose imagery for land applications. | n/a | |
TIRS-2
Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 | Operational
| Measures longwave thermal infrared surface emittance, land cover state, and change. Used as multipurpose imagery for land applications. TIRS-2 will adhere to the Landsat 8 TIRS instrument performance specifications but will be built to NASA Class-B instrument standards (including a 5-year design life). | n/a | |
VIIRS
Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite | Operational
| Global observations of land, ocean, and atmosphere parameters: cloud/weather imagery, sea-surface temperature, ocean colour, land surface vegetation indices. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
CLIM
3-band CLoud Imager | Being developed
| 3-band cloud pushbroom imager for detecting low and high clouds in the spatial sample of CO2I allowing to remove these data from the retrieval process. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
CPR (EarthCARE)
Cloud Profiling Radar (EarthCARE) | Being developed
| Measurement of cloud properties, light precipitation, vertical motion. | Cloud and precipitation radar | |
FCI
Flexible Combined Imager | Being developed
| Measurements of cloud cover, cloud top height, precipitation, cloud motion, vegetation, radiation fluxes, convection, air mass analysis, cirrus cloud discrimination, tropopause monitoring, stability monitoring, total ozone and sea surface temperature. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
GEOXO Imager
GEO Extended Operations Imager | Being developed
| Detects clouds, cloud properties, water vapour, land and sea surface temperatures, dust, aerosols, volcanic ash, fires, total ozone, snow and ice cover, vegetation index. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
IASI-NG
Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer - New Generation | Being developed
+/-10 % | Measures profiles of atmospheric temperature, humidity, ozone, carbon monoxide, columns of methane, nitrous oxide, and other minor gases, and sea, ice, and land surface temperature and emissivity. Provides information on aeorols and cloud: fractional coverage, phase, cloud top height (input to Polar AMVs) and particle size. Prime applications: NWP, AC/AQ, climate. Secondary applications: NWC, land/ocean surface monitoring. IASI-NG will resume IASI role as internationl standard for satellite inter-calibration (GSICS). | Medium-resolution IR spectrometer | |
IRS
Infra-Red Sounder | Being developed
| Measurements of vertically resolved clear sky atmospheric motion vectors, temperature and water vapour profiles. | Medium-resolution IR spectrometer | |
OCI
Ocean Color Instrument | Being developed
| Ocean color slit-grating imaging spectrometer/radiometer for measuring top of atmosphere reflectance which is used to estimate ocean leaving light that contains information on biological components plus aerosol and cloud propertiesl | n/a | |
UVNS (Sentinel-5)
Ultra-violet Visible Near-infrared Shortwave-infrared spectrometer | Being developed
| Supporting atmospheric composition and air quality monitoring services. Measurements of atmospheric trace gases, primarily O3, NO2, SO2, HCHO, CH4 and CO. | n/a | |
GHMI
Geostationary HiMawari Imager | Approved
| | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
MVIRS
Moderate Resolution Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectroradiometer | Approved
| Measures surface temperature and cloud and ice cover. Used for snow and flood monitoring and surface temperature. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
IKFS-3
Advanced Fourier spectrometer | Proposed
| Atmospheric temperature/humidity profiles, data on cloud parameters, water vapour & ozone column amounts, surface temperature. | n/a | |
LandIS
Landsat Next Instrument Suite | Proposed
| Measures surface radiance, land cover state and change (e.g., vegetation type), and longwave termal infrared surface emittance. Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications. | n/a | |
HISUI
Hyperspectral Imager Suite | No longer considered
| Global energy and resource related applications - Exploration of oil, gas, and metal resources - Environmental assessments of oil/gas fields and mines. Other applications such as environmental monitoring, agriculture, and forestry. Instrument was considered as a part of ALOS-3. | n/a | |