Instrument Classes

An imaging instrument that records visible (and often near-infrared or ultraviolet) light — the eyes of a spacecraft, from wide-angle context cameras to high-resolution narrow-angle telescopes.

An instrument that captures both an image and a spectrum for every pixel, mapping the composition of a surface or atmosphere by the wavelengths of light it reflects or emits.

An instrument that splits light into its component wavelengths to reveal composition, temperature, and motion — the workhorse of remote sensing, spanning ultraviolet, visible, infrared, X-ray, and gamma-ray bands.

An instrument that sorts atoms and molecules by mass, identifying the chemical and isotopic makeup of a sample of gas or dust — essential for atmospheres, plumes, and returned samples.

An instrument that measures magnetic fields, revealing a planet's internal dynamo, a moon's hidden ocean, or the structure of the solar wind and magnetospheres.

An instrument that counts and characterises the electrons, ions, and cosmic rays of space plasmas — mapping radiation belts, the solar wind, and energetic-particle events.

An instrument that detects the tiny dust grains of space — from cometary and interplanetary dust to the particles of planetary rings — measuring their speed, mass, and sometimes composition.

An active instrument that transmits radio waves and analyses the echoes to map surfaces through cloud and darkness, or to probe beneath the surface. Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) achieves high resolution from orbit.

An active instrument that fires laser pulses and times their return to measure distance precisely — mapping the topography of a planet, moon, or asteroid with height accuracy of metres.

An instrument that senses the tiny ground motions of quakes and impacts, probing the interior structure of a world by how seismic waves travel through it — as InSight did for Mars.

An instrument that measures the gamma rays and neutrons emitted by a surface under cosmic-ray bombardment, revealing elemental composition — and, through neutrons, the presence of water or ice.

A technique that uses the spacecraft's own radio signal as an instrument — tracking tiny frequency shifts to weigh a planet, map its gravity field, and probe its atmosphere and rings by how they bend the signal.