| Instrument | Status/
Accuracy | Instrument Description | Measurement Technology | Timeline |
| ABI | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | Operational | Diurnal measurements of ozone, sulfur dioxide, UV surface radiation, clouds, aerosols and vegetation. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| FCI | 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 | |
| IASI | 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 | |
| IKFS-2 | Operational | Atmospheric temperature/humidity profiles, data on cloud parameters, water vapour & ozone column amounts, surface temperature. | n/a | |
| MISR | 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 | 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 | 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 | Operational | Operational metrology, hydrology, climate monitoring and environmental monitoring | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| MVIRS | Operational | Measures surface temperature and cloud and ice cover. Used for snow and flood monitoring and surface temperature. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| OCI | Operational | 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 | |
| OLCI | Operational | Marine and land services. | n/a | |
| OLI | 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 | Measures surface radiance, land cover state, and change (e.g., vegetation type). Used as multi-purpose imagery for land applications. | n/a | |
| OLS | Operational | Day and night cloud cover imagery. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| POSP | Operational | Sensor to map radiometric and polarimetric information of global atmospheric particulate matter specifically PM2.5 and PM10 distributions. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| SEVIRI | 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 | 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 | Operational | Atmospheric soundings and data on atmospheric stability and thermal gradient winds. | n/a | |
| TANSO-CAI | Operational | Detection and correction of cloud and aerosol for TANSO-FTS. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| TANSO-CAI-2 | Operational | Detection and correction of cloud and aerosol for TANSO-FTS, aerosol characteristics | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| TIRS | Operational | Measures longwave thermal infrared surface emittance, land cover state, and change. Used as multipurpose imagery for land applications. | n/a | |
| TIRS-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 | 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 | 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) | Being developed | Measurement of cloud properties, light precipitation, vertical motion. | Cloud and precipitation radar | |
| GXI | 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 | 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 | Being developed | Measurements of vertically resolved clear sky atmospheric motion vectors, temperature and water vapour profiles. | Medium-resolution IR spectrometer | |
| UVN (Sentinel-4) | Being developed | Supporting atmospheric composition and air quality monitoring services. | n/a | |
| UVNS (Sentinel-5) | Being developed | Supporting atmospheric composition and air quality monitoring services. Measurements of atmospheric trace gases, primarily O3, NO2, SO2, HCHO, CH4, CO, CHOCHO as well as Aerosols and UV Index. | n/a | |
| GHMI | Approved | | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
| IKFS-3 | Proposed | Atmospheric temperature/humidity profiles, data on cloud parameters, water vapour & ozone column amounts, surface temperature. | n/a | |
| LandIS | 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 | |