| Instrument | Status/
Accuracy | Instrument Description | Measurement Technology | Timeline |
AltiKa
Ka-band Altimeter | Operational
| Sea surface height. | n/a |  |
AMSR2
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 | Operational
+/-1.1 m/s | Measurements of water vapour, cloud liquid water, precipitation, winds, sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration, snow cover, soil moisture. | n/a | |
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 | |
ASCAT
Advanced Scatterometer | Operational
| Measures wind speed and direction over ocean, soil moisture, sea ice cover, sea ice type, snow cover and snow parameters and vegetation parameters | n/a | |
ATMS
Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder | Operational
| Collects microwave radiance data that when combined with the CrIS data will permit calculation of atmospheric temperature and water vapour profiles. | n/a | |
C-Band SAR
C-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar | Operational
| Marine core services, land monitoring and emergency services. Monitoring sea ice zones and arctic environment. Surveillance of marine environment, monitoring land surface motion risks, mapping of land surfaces (forest, water and soil, agriculture), mapping in support of humanitarian aid in crisis situations. | n/a | |
COWVR
Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer | Operational
| Hosted on the ISS, COWVR measures the direction and speed of winds at the ocean surface | n/a | |
DDMI (CYGNSS)
Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument (DDMI) | Operational
+/-2 m/s | Constellation of bistatic radar receivers using GPS satellite transmitters to detect ocean surface roughness and estimate near-surface wind speed from calm sea through hurricane force conditions and under all levels of precipitation. | n/a | |
GMI
GPM Microwave Imager | Operational
| Measures rainfall rates over oceans and land, combined rainfall structure and surface rainfall rates with associated latent heating. Used to produce three hour, daily, and monthly total rainfall maps over oceans and land. | n/a | |
MTVZA-GY
Scanning microwave imager-sounder | Operational
| Atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, precipitation, sea-level wind speed, snow/ice coverage. | n/a | |
MWRI
Micro-Wave Radiation Imager | Operational
| All weather observations of precipitation, cloud features, vegetation, soil moisture sea ice, etc. | n/a | |
MWRI
Microwave Radiometer Imager | Operational
| Ocean wind and temperature measurements. | n/a | |
POSEIDON-3B Altimeter
Positioning Ocean Solid Earth Ice Dynamics Orbiting Navigator (Single frequency solid state radar altimeter) | Operational
| Nadir viewing sounding radar for provision of real-time high precision sea surface topography, ocean circulation and wave height data. | n/a | |
Poseidon-4 Altimeter
Poseidon-4 SAR Radar Altimeter | Operational
| Nadir viewing sounding radar for provision of real-time high-precision sea surface topography, ocean circulation and wave height data. | n/a | |
SAR (RADARSAT-2)
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) C band | Operational
| All-weather images of ocean, ice and land surfaces. Used for monitoring of coastal zones, polar ice, sea ice, sea state, geological features, vegetation and land surface processes. | n/a | |
SAR (RCM)
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) C band | Operational
| All-weather, C-band data to support ecosystem monitoring, maritime surveillance and disaster management. | n/a | |
SAR-L
L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar | Operational
| Land, ocean, emergencies, soil moisture, interferometry, others. | n/a | |
SCAT
Scatterometer | Operational
| Monitoring global sea surface winds. | n/a | |
SGR-ReSI-CDHS
Space GNSS Receiver - Remote Sensing Instrument, CoreDHS avionics | Operational
| Ocean winds, waves, soil moisture, flooding, ice, snow. Similar to SGR-ReSI-Z, but with a smaller Zynq, and only supports 2 RF channels, only allowing collection of single frequency and single polarisation. | n/a | |
SRAL
SAR Radar Altimeter | Operational
| Marine and land services. | n/a | |
WindRAD
Wind Radar | Operational
| Measures sea-surface wind. | n/a | |
AMSR3
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 3 | Being developed
| Measurements of water vapour, cloud liquid water, precipitation including snowfall, winds, sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration, snow cover, soil moisture. | n/a | |
IRIS
Interferometric Radar Altimeter for Ice and Snow | Being developed
| Ku-band Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (with added Ka-band channel for snow depth retrieval and in combination with AMR-CR MW Radiometer for ice&snow classification and wet troposphere correction) to cover the needs for continuous monitoring of the sea ice
thickness and land ice elevation measurement after Cryosat-2 with enhanced performance. | n/a | |
MWI
Microwave Imager | Being developed
| Measure cloud liquid water content, solid/liquid precipitation information, total column water vapour and temperature profiles, sea ice parameters, sea surface temperature, sea surface wind speed. | n/a | |
MWS
Microwave Sounder | Being developed
| All-weather night-day temperature sounding | n/a | |
SCA
SCA | Being developed
| Measures wind speed and direction over ocean, soil moisture, sea ice cover, sea ice type, snow cover and snow parameters and vegetation parameters | n/a | |
SGR-ReSI-Z
Space GNSS Receiver - Remote Sensing Instrument (Zynq based) | Being developed
+/-2 m/s | Ocean winds, waves, soil moisture, flooding, ice, snow | n/a | |
POSEIDON-3C Altimeter
Positioning Ocean Solid Earth Ice Dynamics Orbiting Navigator (Single frequency solid state radar altimeter) | Approved
| Nadir viewing sounding radar for provision of real-time high precision sea surface topography, ocean circulation and wave height data. | 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 | |
AMSR-E
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS | No longer operational
+/-1.5 m/s | Measurements of water vapour, cloud liquid water, precipitation, winds, sea surface temperature, sea ice concentration, snow cover and soil moisture. Instrument stopped functioning 4th October 2011. | n/a | |