- All Categories
- Data
- News
- Missions
- Events
- Tools
- Activities
- Instruments
- Campaigns
- Documents
INSTRUMENTS
Explore the many instruments the European Space Agency use to observe the Earth. ESA offer data from a wide range of optical, radar, atmospheric, altimetric and gravimetric instrumentation.
Instrument - Magnetic Field/Electric Field Instruments
EFI
The Electric Field Instrument (EFI) aboard the Swarm satellites is the first 3D ionospheric imager in space.
Instrument - MAGNETOMETERS
ASM
The Absolute Scalar Magnetometer on the Swarm satellites measures the strength of the magnetic field.
Instrument - MAGNETOMETERS
VFM
The Vector Field Magnetometer (VFM) is the primary instrument carried aboard the Swarm satellites.
Instrument - Imaging Radars
ASAR
ASAR ensures continuity with the image mode (SAR) and the wave mode of the ERS-1/2 AMI.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
PRISM
PRISM was a panchromatic radiometer on the ALOS-1 mission with 2.5 m spatial resolution at nadir.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
AVNIR-2
The Advanced Visible and Near-Infrared Radiometer-2 (AVNIR-2) was a visible and near infrared radiometer for observing land and coastal zones.
Instrument - Imaging Radars
PALSAR
The ALOS-1 PALSAR was a successor sensor to the synthetic aperture radar on board JERS-1.
Instrument - Accelerometers
EGG
The main objective of GOCE's EGG was to measure the three components of the Gravity-Gradient Tensor.
Instrument - Spectrometers
GOMOS
GOMOS is a medium resolution spectrometer covering the wavelength range from 250 nm to 950 nm.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
MERIS
The MERIS instrument aboard Envisat was primarily dedicated to providing ocean colour measurements.
Instrument - Interferometers
MIPAS
MIPAS was an atmospheric instrument carried aboard the Envisat satellite.
Instrument - Imaging Radars
SAR (JERS-1)
The JERS-1 mission had a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on board.
Instrument - Spectrometers
SCIAMACHY
SCIAMACHY was an instrument on board the Envisat satellite that measured atmospheric chemistry.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
Thermal Infra-Red Sensor (TIRS)
TIRS on Landsat-8 mission is a thermal imager that supplements observations from the OLI (Operational Land Imager) instrument.
Instrument - GPS
SSTI
SSTI was a state-of-the-art GPS receiver on GOCE that was designed to operate in a low-Earth orbit.
Instrument - GPS
GPSR and LRR (Swarm)
Each Swarm satellite is equipped with a Laser Retro-Reflector for external calibration and validation of the on-board GPS receiver.
Instrument - Accelerometers
ACC (Swarm)
The Accelerometer measures the Swarm satellite’s non-gravitational acceleration in its respective orbit.
Instrument - Radar Altimeters
STR (Swarm)
The Swarm Star Trackers retrieve information on the precise satellite orientation and attitude.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
Vegetation (VGT)
The main PROBA-V payload is the Vegetation sensor (VGT): a multispectral pushbroom spectrometer.
Instrument - Scatterometers
WS
The Wind Scatterometer (WS) instrument, on board the ERS-1 and ERS-2 missions, obtained information on wind speed and direction over the sea surface.