| 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 |  |
Advanced MI
Advanced Meteorological Imager | Operational
| Continuous monitoring capability for the near real-time generation of high-resolution meteorological products and long-term change analysis of sea surface temperature and cloud coverage. | 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 | |
ALADIN
Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument | Operational
| Global wind profiles (single line-of-sight) for an improved weather prediction. | n/a | |
CALIOP
Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization | Operational
| Two-wavelength, polarisation lidar capable of providing aerosol and cloud profiles and properties. | Atmospheric lidar | |
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 | |
GOME-2
Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment - 2 | Operational
| Measurement of total column amounts and stratospheric and tropospheric profiles of ozone. Also amounts of H20, NO2, OClO, BrO, SO2 and HCHO. | High-resolution nadir-scanning SW spectrometer | |
HIRS/4
High Resolution Infra-red Sounder/4 | Operational
| Atmospheric temperature profiles and data on cloud parameters, humidity soundings, water vapour, total ozone content, and surface temperatures. Same as HIRS/3, with 10 km IFOV. | n/a | |
IRAS
InfraRed Atmospheric Sounder | Operational
| Atmospheric sounding for weather forecasting. | 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 | |
MSU-MR
Low-resolution multispectral scanning imager-radiometer | Operational
| Parameters of clouds, snow, ice and land cover, vegetation, surface temperature, fire detection. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
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
+/-2 km | 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 | |
UVNS (Sentinel-5 precursor)
TROPOMI | Operational
| Supporting atmospheric composition and air quality monitoring services. | High-resolution nadir-scanning SW spectrometer | |
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 | |
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 | |
OPS (Pan, Multi)
Wide-swath and high-resolution optical imager (Pan, Multi) | Being developed
| Disaster monitoring, map generation, land monitoring, agricultural monitoring, natural resource exploration, forest monitoring. | 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. | High-resolution nadir-scanning SW spectrometer | |
ATLID
ATmospheric LIDar | Approved
| Derivation of cloud and aerosol properties - Measurement of molecular and particle backscatter in Rayleigh, co-polar and cross-polar Mie channels. | Atmospheric lidar | |
MAIA
Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols | Approved
+/-200 m | Pushbroom spectropolarimetric camera on a 2-axis gimbal for multiangle viewing, frequent revisits over targets, and inflight calibration. Major metropolitan areas are sampled with sub-km spatial resolution to study impacts of different types of particulate matter on human health. | n/a | |
MSI (EarthCARE)
Multi-Spectral Imager (EarthCARE) | Approved
| Observation of cloud properties and aerosol (aerosols to be confirmed). | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
Advanced MSU-MR
Advanced Multispectral scanning imager-radiometer | Proposed
| Parameters of clouds, snow, ice and land cover, vegetation, surface temperature, fire detection. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
UVN (Sentinel-4)
UV-visible- near infrared imaging spectrometer (Sentinel-4) | Proposed
| Supporting atmospheric composition and air quality monitoring services. | High-resolution nadir-scanning SW spectrometer | |
HiRDLS
High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder | No longer operational
| Measures atmospheric temperature, concentrations of ozone, water vapour, methane, NOx, N2O, CFCs and other minor species, aerosol concentration, location of polar stratospheric clouds and cloud tops. Currently not collecting data on Aqua. | n/a | |