| Instrument | Status/
Accuracy | Instrument Description | Measurement Technology | Timeline |
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. | Lidar altimeter | |
AVHRR/3
Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/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. | n/a | |
HSI-2 (HJ-2A)
Hyper Spectrum Imager 2 | Operational
| Hyperspectral measurements for environment and disaster management operations. | n/a | |
MSU-MR
Low-resolution multispectral scanning imager-radiometer | Operational
| Parameters of clouds, snow, ice and land cover, vegetation, surface temperature, fire detection. | 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. | Imaging radar (SAR) | |
SAR (RCM)
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) C band | Operational
| All-weather, C-band data to support ecosystem monitoring, maritime surveillance and disaster management. | Imaging radar (SAR) | |
SAR-L
L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar | Operational
| Land, ocean, emergencies, soil moisture, interferometry, others. | Imaging radar (SAR) | |
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 | |
SIRAL
SAR Interferometer Radar Altimeter | Operational
| Marine ice and terrestrial ice sheet thickness measurement. | Radar altimeter | |
SRAL
SAR Radar Altimeter | Operational
| Marine and land services. | Radar altimeter | |
Imaging Microwave Radiometer
Imaging Microwave Radiometer | Being developed
| A conical scanning total power radiometer operating in 5 bands (L/C/X/K/Ka) to provide high-spatial resolution microwave imaging radiometry measurements and derived products with continuous global coverage and sub-daily revisit in the polar regions and adjacent seas. | 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 sea ice
thickness and land ice elevation measurement after Cryosat-2, with enhanced performance. | Radar altimeter | |
SGR-ReSI-Z
Space GNSS Receiver - Remote Sensing Instrument (Zynq based) | Being developed
| Ocean winds, waves, soil moisture, flooding, ice, snow | n/a | |
Advanced MSU-MR
Advanced Multispectral scanning imager-radiometer | Proposed
| Parameters of clouds, snow, ice and land cover, vegetation, surface temperature, fire detection. | n/a | |