Considered the rigorous requirement on satellite measurement technology for achieving high precision retrieval of atmospheric CO2, compared with dispersive spectroscopy and interferometric spectroscopy, a novel technology as spatial heterodyne spectroscopy is introduced. According to the requirements on sensor aboard on satellite, measurement principle and instrument structure are introduced in detail, which exhibits the superiority of this technology as the ability of achieving ultrahigh spectral resolution and high signal to noise ratio, and the key technical advantages of small volume, light mass and low power. Based on these, atmospheric CO2 measurement experiments are carried out using spatial heterodyne spectroscopy (SHS) prototype developed by our institute. The results show that the measurements can satisfy the atmospheric CO2 retrieval, and the consistency of experiment results with greenhouse gases observing Satellite (GOSAT) CO2 is verified that spatial heterodyne spectroscopy has the ability of measuring atmospheric CO2 from space.