Short answers, pulled from the story.
POLDER is a passive optical imaging radiometer and polarimeter developed by the French space agency CNES. Its name stands for POLarization and Directionality of the Earth's Reflectances. It was designed to observe solar radiation reflected by Earth's atmosphere.
POLDER observes solar radiation reflected by Earth's atmosphere. Its studies include tropospheric aerosols, sea surface reflectance, the bidirectional reflectance distribution function of land surfaces, and the Earth Radiation Budget.
POLDER has a mass of approximately 30 kilograms and consumes 77 watts in imaging mode, with a mean consumption of 29 watts. Its optical system uses a telecentric lens and a charge-coupled device matrix with a resolution of 242 by 548 pixels, a focal length of 3.57 millimeters, and a focal ratio of 4.6.
POLDER scans between 443 and 910 nanometers FWHM. The shorter wavelengths from 443 to 565 nanometers typically measure ocean color, while the longer wavelengths from 670 to 910 nanometers study vegetation and water vapor content.
POLDER first launched aboard ADEOS I on the 17th of August 1996, with the mission ending on the 30th of June 1997 after the host satellite's communication failed. POLDER 2 launched in December 2002 aboard ADEOS II, and a third-generation instrument flew on the French PARASOL microsatellite.
PARASOL carried a third-generation POLDER instrument and was maneuvered out of the A-train on the 2nd of December 2009. It was permanently shut down on the 18th of December 2013.