| 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 |  |
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 | |
AMI
Advanced Meteorological Imager | Operational
| Continuous monitoring capability for the near real-time generation of high-resolution meteorological products and long-term change analysis of land/sea surface temperature and cloud coverage. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
AMSU-A
Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A | Operational
| All-weather night-day temperature sounding to an altitude of 45 km. | n/a | |
AMSU-A
Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A | Operational
| All-weather night-day temperature sounding to an altitude of 45 km. AMSU-A on Aqua is still partially operational, with 9 of the 15 channels working and collecting data. | n/a | |
ASTER
Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer | Operational
| Surface and cloud imaging with high spatial resolution, stereoscopic observation of local topography, cloud heights, volcanic plumes, and generation of local surface digital elevation maps. Surface temperature and emissivity. ASTER SWIR detectors are no longer functioning due to anomalously high SWIR detector temperatures. ASTER SWIR data acquired since April 2008 are not useable, and show saturation of values and severe striping. All attempts to bring the SWIR bands back to life have failed, and no further action is envisioned. | n/a | |
ATLAS
Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System | Operational
| Provide date on ice sheet height and sea ice thickness, land altitude, aerosol height distributions, cloud height and boundary layer height. | n/a | |
FCI
Flexible Combined 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 | |
HSI-2 (HJ-2A)
Hyper Spectrum Imager 2 | Operational
| Hyperspectral measurements for environment and disaster management operations. | 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 | |
MHS
Microwave Humidity Sounder | Operational
| Atmospheric humidity profiles, cloud cover, cloud liquid, water content, ice boundaries and precipitation data.
MHS on NOAA-18 is considered failed following an anomaly on 21 October 2018. | 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-IK-SR
Multi-channel medium and far IR range radiometer | Operational
| Parameters of clouds, snow, ice and land cover, vegetation, surface temperature, fire detection. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
MTVZA-GY
Scanning microwave imager-sounder | Operational
| Atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, precipitation, sea-level wind speed, snow/ice coverage. | n/a | |
MVIRS
Moderate Resolution Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectroradiometer | Operational
| Measures surface temperature and cloud and ice cover. Used for snow and flood monitoring and surface temperature. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
MWRI
Micro-Wave Radiation Imager | Operational
| All weather observations of precipitation, cloud features, vegetation, soil moisture sea ice, etc. | n/a | |
OLS
Operational Linescan System | Operational
| Day and night cloud cover imagery. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
OMI
Ozone Measuring Instrument | Operational
| Mapping of ozone columns, key air quality components (NO2, SO2, BrO, OClO and aerosols), measurements of cloud pressure and coverage, global distribution and trends in UV-B radiation. | n/a | |
PAN (CBERS-4)
Panchromatic and Multispectral Imager | Operational
| Agriculture; Forestry; Geology; Natural disaster management; Cartography; Environment monitoring; Fire detection, localization and counting; Hydrology, coastal water mapping; Land use; Surveillance and law enforcement | n/a | |
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
+/-0 | 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 | |
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 | |
VIRR
Multispectral Visible and Infra-red Scan Radiometer (10 channels) | Operational
| Multispectral Visible and Infra-red Scan Radiometer. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
VISSR-2
Stretched Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer-2 | Operational
| Meteorological. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
CPR (EarthCARE)
Cloud Profiling Radar (EarthCARE) | Being developed
| Measurement of cloud properties, light precipitation, vertical motion. | n/a | |
GXI
GeoXO 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 | |
Fourier Transform Spectrometer
Fourier Transform Spectrometer | Approved
| Measure across Earth’s entire far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum | n/a | |
GHMI
Geostationary HiMawari Imager | Approved
| | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
MSI (EarthCARE)
Multi-Spectral Imager (EarthCARE) | Approved
| Observation of cloud properties and aerosol (aerosols to be confirmed). | 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 | |
MTVZA-GY-MP
Advanced Scanning microwave imager-sounder | Proposed
| Atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, precipitation, sea-level wind speed, snow/ice coverage. | n/a | |