| 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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
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 | |
HARP2
Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter | Operational
| Polarimeter for measuring aerosol optical properties, clouds and aerosol types. | n/a | |
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 | |
IASI
Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer | Operational
+/-300 m | 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 | |
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 | |
TROPOMI
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 | |
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 | |
GXS
GeoXO Sounder | Being developed
| | n/a | |
IASI-NG
Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer - New Generation | Being developed
+/-200 m | 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 | |
METimage
Multi Spectral Imager | Being developed
| Operational multi spectral imager for meteorological EPS-SG VIS/IR Imaging Mission (VII): imagery data for global and regional NWP, NWC, and climate monitoring with information on LST, SST, clouds coverage, height and micro-physics, land surfaces (vegetation, snow/ice, fire), water vapour column, aerosol and atmospheric motion vectors. Provides collocated cloud mask, height & characterisation as well as intra-pixel heterogeneity to other EPS-SG missions (with larger footprint). | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
UVN (Sentinel-4)
UV-visible- near infrared imaging spectrometer (Sentinel-4) | Being developed
| Supporting atmospheric composition and air quality monitoring services. | 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 | |
GHMI
Geostationary HiMawari Imager | Approved
| | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
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 | |
ALADIN-2
Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument - 2 | Proposed
| Global wind profiles (single line-of-sight) for an improved weather prediction. | n/a | |
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 | |