| 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 |  |
ACDL
Aerosol and Carbon Detection Lidar | Operational
| For CO2 a pulsed dual-wavelength lidar alternately emits two pulsed lasers near 1572 nm in a sequential manner one in the CO2 absorption line and one off the line. For aerosol detection a high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL) at 532 and 1064 nm. | Atmospheric lidar | |
Advanced GOCI
Advanced Geostationary Ocean Colour Imager | Operational
| Ocean colour information, coastal zone monitoring, land resources monitoring. | 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 | |
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 | |
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. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
DPC-2
Directional Polarization Camera - 2 | Operational
| To measure aerosol and cloud microphysical parameters and the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) | n/a | |
EPIC
Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera | Operational
+/-1 % | Diurnal measurements of ozone, sulfur dioxide, UV surface radiation, clouds, aerosols and vegetation. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
GNSS POD Receiver
Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) Precise Orbit Determination (POD) Receiver | Operational
| Precision orbit determination. | n/a | |
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 | |
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. | Multi-channel/direction/polarisation radiometer | |
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-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 | |
NACHOS Hyperspectral Imager
NACHOS Hyperspectral Imager | Operational
| | High-resolution nadir-scanning SW spectrometer | |
OLCI
Ocean and Land Colour Imager | Operational
| Marine and land services. | n/a | |
OMI
Ozone Measuring Instrument | Operational
| Mapping of ozone columns, key air quality components (NO2, SO2, BrO, OClO and aerosols), measurements of cloud pressure and coverage, global distribution and trends in UV-B radiation. | High-resolution nadir-scanning SW spectrometer | |
OMPS
Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite | Operational
| Measures total amount of ozone in the atmosphere and the ozone concentration variation with altitude. | High-resolution nadir-scanning SW spectrometer | |
SGLI
Second-generation Global Imager | Operational
+/-0.15 | 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 | |
SPEXone
Spectro-Polarimeter for Exploration | Operational
| Polarimeter for measuring aerosol optical properties, clouds and aerosol types. Multi-angle spectro-polarimetry by spectral modulation technology. Distribution and detailed micro-phyiscal properties of atmospheric aerosol. Direct and indirect aerosol radiative forcing and their impact on climate. A second instance of this instrument is in development. | Multi-channel/direction/polarisation radiometer | |
TANSO-CAI
Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observation - Cloud and Aerosol Imager | Operational
| Detection and correction of cloud and aerosol for TANSO-FTS. | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
TANSO-CAI-2
Thermal And Near infrared Sensor for carbon Observation - Cloud and Aerosol Imager-2 | Operational
| Detection and correction of cloud and aerosol for TANSO-FTS, aerosol characteristics | Multi-purpose imaging Vis/IR radiometer | |
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 | |
3MI
Multi-Viewing Multi-Channel Multi-Polarisation Imaging | Being developed
| Measure aerosol parameters, air quality index, surface albedo, cloud information | Multi-channel/direction/polarisation radiometer | |
ACX
GeoXO Atmospheric Composition Instrument | Being developed
| | n/a | |
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 | |
MAP
Multi-Angular Multi-band Polarimeter | Being developed
| Multi-angle polarimeter for supporting the CO2 and CH4 retrieval allowing to accurately estimate the effective light path effects of aerosol. Relatively high spatial resolution and accurate aerosol information will be operationally delivered. | Multi-channel/direction/polarisation radiometer | |
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 | |
UVNS (Sentinel-5)
Ultra-violet Visible Near-infrared Shortwave-infrared spectrometer | 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. | 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
+/-0.05 | 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. | Multi-channel/direction/polarisation 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 | |
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 | |