| 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. | n/a |  |
ACE-FTS
Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) Fourier Transform Spectrometer | Operational
| Measure and understand the chemical processes that control the distribution of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere, especially at high altitudes. | Limb-scanning 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. | n/a | |
AMSR2
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 | Operational
+/-0.04 kg/m2 | 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. | Absorption-band MW radiometer/spectrometer | |
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. | Absorption-band MW radiometer/spectrometer | |
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 | |
HARP2
Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter | Operational
| Polarimeter for measuring aerosol optical properties, clouds and aerosol types. | n/a | |
IKFS-2
IR-Fourier spectrometer | Operational
| Atmospheric temperature/humidity profiles, data on cloud parameters, water vapour & ozone column amounts, surface temperature. | High-resolution nadir-scanning IR spectrometer | |
MAESTRO
Measurements of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation | Operational
| Chemical processes involved in the depletion of the ozone layer, and now including a high quality water vapour data product. | Limb-scanning SW spectrometer | |
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. | Absorption-band MW radiometer/spectrometer | |
MTVZA-GY
Scanning microwave imager-sounder | Operational
| Atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, precipitation, sea-level wind speed, snow/ice coverage. | Absorption-band MW radiometer/spectrometer | |
MWRI
Micro-Wave Radiation Imager | Operational
| All weather observations of precipitation, cloud features, vegetation, soil moisture sea ice, etc. | n/a | |
VISSR-2
Stretched Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer-2 | Operational
| Meteorological. | 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 | |
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. | n/a | |
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). | n/a | |
MWI
Microwave Imager | Being developed
+/-50 % | 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 | |
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. | n/a | |
IKFS-3
Advanced Fourier spectrometer | Proposed
| Atmospheric temperature/humidity profiles, data on cloud parameters, water vapour & ozone column amounts, surface temperature. | High-resolution nadir-scanning IR spectrometer | |
MTVZA-GY-MP
Advanced Scanning microwave imager-sounder | Proposed
| Atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles, precipitation, sea-level wind speed, snow/ice coverage. | Absorption-band MW radiometer/spectrometer | |
AMSR-E
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS | No longer operational
+/-0.05 kg/m2 | 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 | |
HSB
Humidity Sounder for Brazil | No longer operational
| Humidity soundings for climatological and atmospheric dynamics applications. The scan mirror motor failed on the 5th of February 2003. | Absorption-band MW radiometer/spectrometer | |