NOAA-16, also known as NOAA-L before launch, was an operational, polar orbiting, weather satellite series (NOAA K-N) operated by the National Environmental Satellite Service (NESS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA-16 continued the series of Advanced TIROS-N (ATN) spacecraft that began with the launch of NOAA-8 (NOAA-E) in 1983; but it had additional new and improved instrumentation over the NOAA A-K series and a new launch vehicle (Titan 23G). It was launched on 21 September 2000 and, following an unknown anomaly, it was decommissioned on 9 June 2014. In November 2015 it broke up in orbit, creating more than 200 pieces of debris.

NOAA-16 was launched by the Titan 23G launch vehicle on 21 September 2000 at 10:22 UTC from Vandenberg Air Force Base, at Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 4 (SLW-4W), in a Sun-synchronous orbit, at 843 km above the Earth, orbiting every 102.10 minutes. NOAA-16 was in a morning equator-crossing orbit and has replaced the NOAA-14 as the prime morning spacecraft.

The goal of the NOAA/NESS polar orbiting program is to provide output products used in meteorological prediction and warning, oceanographic and hydrologic services, and space environment monitoring. The polar orbiting system complements the NOAA/NESS geostationary meteorological satellite program (GOES). The NOAA-16 Advanced TIROS-N spacecraft was based on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP Block 5D) spacecraft and was a modified version of the ATN spacecraft (NOAA 6-11, 13-15) to accommodate the new instrumentation, supporting antennas and electrical subsystems. The spacecraft structure consisted of four components: 1° the Reaction System Support (RSS); 2° the Equipment Support Module (ESM); 3° the Instrument Mounting Platform (IMP); and 4° the Solar Array (SA).

All of the instruments were located on the ESM and the IMP. The spacecraft power was provided by a direct energy transfer system from the single solar array which consisted of eight panels of solar cells. The in-orbit Attitude Determination and Control Subsystem (ADACS) provided three-axis pointing control by controlling torque in three mutually orthogonal momentum wheels with input from the Earth Sensor Assembly (ESA) for pitch, roll, and yaw updates. The ADACS controlled the spacecraft attitude so that orientation of the three axes was maintained to within ± 0.2° and pitch, roll, and yaw to within 0.1°. The ADACS consisted of the Earth Sensor Assembly (ESA), the Sun Sensor Assembly (SSA), four Reaction Wheel Assemblies (RWA), two roll/yaw coils (RYC), two pitch torquing coils (PTC), four gyros, and computer software for data processing. The ATN data handling subsystem, consisted of the TIROS Information Processor (TIP) for low data rate instruments, the Manipulated Information Rate Processor (MIRP) for high data rate AVHRR, digital tape recorders (DTR), and a cross strap unit (XSU).

The NOAA-16 instrument complement consists of: 1° an improved six-channel Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer/3 (AVHRR/3); 2° an improved High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS/3); 3° the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking System (SARSAT), which consists of the Search and Rescue Repeater (SARR) and the Search and Rescue Processor (SARP-2); 4° the French/CNES-provided improved Argos Data Collection System (Argos DCS-2); 5° the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Spectral radiometer (SBUV/2); and 6° the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), which consists of three separate modules, A1, A2, and B to replace the previous MSU and SSU instruments.

It hosts the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), Advanced very-high-resolution radiometer (AVHRR) and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments' Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) transmitter. NOAA-16 has the same suite of instruments as carried by NOAA-15 plus an SBUV/2 instrument as well.

The AVHRR/3 on the Advanced TIROS-N (ATN) NOAA K-N series of polar orbiting meteorological satellites is an improved instrument over previous AVHRRs. The AVHRR/3 adds a sixth channel and is a cross-track scanning instrument providing imaging and radiometric data in the visible, near-IR and infrared of the same area on the Earth. Data from the visible and near-IR channels provide information on vegetation, clouds, snow, and ice. Data from the near-IR and thermal channels provide information on the land and ocean surface temperature and radiative properties of clouds. Only five channels can be transmitted simultaneously with channels 3A and 3B being switched for day/night operation. The instrument produces data in High Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) mode at 1.1 km resolution or in Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) mode at a reduced resolution of 4 km. The AVHRR/3 scans 55.4° per scan line on either side of the orbital track and scans 360 lines per minute. The six channels are: 1) channel 1, visible (0.58-0.68 μm); 2) channel 2, near-IR (0.725-1.0 μm); 3) channel 3A, near-IR (1.58-1.64 μm); 4) channel 3B, infrared (3.55-3.93 μm; 5) channel 4, infrared (10.3-11.3 μm); and 6) channel 5 (11.5-12.5 μm).

The improved HIRS/3 on the Advanced TIROS-N (ATN) NOAA K-N series of polar orbiting weather satellites is a 20-channel, step-scanned, visible and infrared spectrometer designed to provide atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles. The HIRS/3 instrument is basically identical to the HIRS/2 flown on previous spacecraft except for changes in six spectral bands to improve the sounding accuracy. The HIRS/3 is used to derive water vapor, ozone, and cloud liquid water content. The instrument scans 49.5° on either side of the orbital track with a ground resolution at nadir of 17.4 km. The instrument produces 56 IFOVs for each 1,125 km scan line at 42 km between IFOVs along-track. The instrument consists of 19 infrared and 1 visible channel centered at 14.95, 14.71, 14.49, 14.22, 13.97, 13.64, 13.35, 11.11, 9.71, 12.45, 7.33, 6.52, 4.57, 4.52, 4.47, 4.45, 4.13, 4.0, 3.76, and 0.69 μm.