A Japanese remote sensing satellite designed to collect worldwide environmental data from a sophisticated suite of sensors. The core sensors on ADEOS are an advanced visible and near-infrared radiometer and an ocean color and temperature sensor. Additional instruments on ADEOS include the NASA scatterometer, a total ozone mapping spectrometer, an instrument to measure the polarization and directionality of the earth's reflectance, an interferometric monitor for greenhouse gases, an improved limb atmospheric spectrometer, and a retroreflector in space. ADEOS was launched on 17 August 1996, into a sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite failed on 29 June 1997, but will be replaced by other satellites in the ADEOS series.