In May 2008, several important changes with respect to satellite data assimilation were made to the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) operational global 4D-Var Data Assimilation and Forecast System (DAFS). At the same time, a new version of the MSC DAFS has been developed which uses a new version of the MSC Global Environmental Multiscale (GEM) model called GEM-Strato. The GEM- Strato model incorporates several significant changes to the current version of the model, including a lid raised from 10 hPa (~30 km) to 0.1 hPa (~65 km). The new system, scheduled to replace the current system in 2009, allows for assimilation of additional radiance data from higher-peaking microwave and infrared instrument channels as well as GPS radio-occultation data up to 40 km (~3 hPa). This paper describes the recent changes in satellite data assimilation in the operational DAFS, and presents results of satellite data impact experiments with the new GEM-Strato system. In addition, the performance of the operational DAFS and the new GEM-Strato system are compared. Finally, future plans for satellite data assimilation are presented, which include assimilation of data from the EUMETSAT satellites METOP (AMSU-A, MHS, IASI, GRAS, ASCAT) and METEOSAT.