The overview of different approaches to the problem of remote sensing of the non-LTE atmosphere by satellite instruments working in the infrared region is presented. Special emphasis is made on the approach, which does not require modeling of the processes driving the nonequilibrium populations of the molecular vibrational states. The method of simultaneous retrieval of kinetic temperature, pressure, concentration of atmospheric gases and nonequilibrium populations of the vibrational states of molecules of atmospheric gases (vibrational temperatures) from the high altitude limb infrared radiance measurements in 15 μm region is described. The results of the application of this method to the interpretation of the limb radiance spectra measured by the CRISTA instrument are presented. The kinetic temperature profiles derived in the altitude range 40-120 km are shown and the features of the thermal structure of this atmospheric region are compared with climatological data. The magnitude of the non-LTE effect for the CO₂ vibrational states which give origin to 15 μm transitions is analyzed on the basis of retrieved CO₂ vibrational temperatures. The vertical distributions of the CO₂ volume mixing ratio in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere derived from the CRISTA measurements are presented and compared with model data. The problem of the influence of the amount of a priori information on the retrieval results is discussed on the basis of calculations of the information content by the Shannon approach.