The French space agency, CNES, has developed the POLDER instrument, which flew on ADEOS (ADvanced Earth Observation Satellite), developed by the Japanese space agency, JAXA. This was the first French/Japanese cooperative project in the area of Earth observation.

A second, identical instrument flew on ADEOS-2, successor to ADEOS, until October 2003.

POLDER is a wide field of view imaging radiometer that has provided the first global, systematic measurements of spectral, directional and polarized characteristics of the solar radiation reflected by the Earth/atmosphere system. Its original observation capabilities have opened up new perspectives for discriminating the radiation scattered in the atmosphere from the radiation actually reflected by the surface.
 

Pictures of POLDER 2 sensor integration phase on ADEOS-2.