In-situ diagnostics of ionospheric plasma are made most commonly by instruments that provide only bulk properties such as electron density and temperature (by Langmuir probes), and ion temperature, flow velocity and composition (by retarding potential analyzers and ion drift meters).  Instruments that measure full particle distribution functions (e.g. top-hat analyzers) typically do not function well in the ionosphere because of the low particle energies involved.   Thermal Ion Imaging is a new technique that allows high-resolution, 2-D (angle-energy)  imaging of plasma populations having temperatures as low as 0.1 eV. Four TII-based instruments have been launched into orbit in the past several months, three on the European Space Agency's Swarm satellites launched in November, and another on the POP satellite launched in September. This talk will describe the TII technique and present first examples from orbit.