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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 - 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.
Instrument - MAGNETOMETERS
VFM
The Vector Field Magnetometer (VFM) is the primary instrument carried aboard the Swarm satellites.
Instrument - Radar Altimeters
STR (Swarm)
The Swarm Star Trackers retrieve information on the precise satellite orientation and attitude.
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 - Radar Altimeters
SIRAL
SIRAL (SAR Interferometer Radar Altimeter) is the primary instrument onboard ESA's CryoSat mission.
Instrument - Spectrometers
SCIAMACHY
SCIAMACHY was an instrument on board the Envisat satellite that measured atmospheric chemistry.
Instrument - Imaging Radars
SAR (JERS-1)
The JERS-1 mission had a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on board.
Instrument - Scatterometers
SAR (ERS)
The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument aboard ERS-1 and ERS-2 was capable of high precision change detection of surface heights.
Instrument - Radar Altimeters
RA-2
The RA-2 instrument aboard Envisat acquired radar altimetry data over ocean, land and ice surfaces.
Instrument - Radar Altimeters
RA (ERS)
The Radar Altimeter (RA) was a Ku-band (13.8 GHz) nadir-pointing active microwave sensor, on board ERS-1 and ERS-2 missions, designed to measure echoes from ocean and ice surfaces.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
MWR (ERS)
The microwave radiometer (MWR) instrument on board the ERS-1 and ERS-2 missions provided measurements of the integrated atmospheric water vapour column and cloud liquid water content.
Instrument - Interferometric Radiometers
MIRAS
The MIRAS instrument is a passive microwave 2-D interferometric radiometer onboard the SMOS satellite.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
MERIS
The MERIS instrument aboard Envisat was primarily dedicated to providing ocean colour measurements.
Instrument - Laser Ranging
LRR (Envisat)
The LRR instrument aboard Envisat was used to accurately determine the orbital height of the satellite.
Instrument - Cameras
HRC
The High Resolution Camera (HRC) is a black and white camera with a miniaturised telescope on the PROBA-1 mission.
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
EGG
The main objective of GOCE's EGG was to measure the three components of the Gravity-Gradient Tensor.
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 - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
CHRIS
Compact High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CHRIS) provided data of spectral reflectances.
Instrument - Imaging Spectrometers/Radiometers
ATSR
The Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) on board ERS-1 and ERS-2 mission consisted of two instruments, an Infra-Red Radiometer and a Microwave Sounder.