The 316L stainless steel is used in spacecraft. In order to mitigate debris in the Low-Earth Orbit and to avoid dramatic collisions on Earth after atmospheric re-entry at its end-of-life, the spacecraft mission has to take into account the influence of reentry on the spacecraft survivability. In this way, the emissivity of 316L stainless steel samples: as-received (virgin), pre-oxidized in air plasma and oxidized in situ in air was measured from 1000 K up to 1650 K – as no data can be found in the literature at such high temperatures – and in different atmospheres: high vacuum and for two low total pressures of 300 and 2000 Pa concerning the aerospace domain. Moreover, as it could be interesting for other applications, emissivity measurements at atmospheric pressure were also performed. Experimental results obtained for this material at high temperatures and different pressure conditions together with microstructural characterization using SEM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy and 3D profilometry are presented. As expected, the emissivity of the oxidized 316L samples is much higher than the one measured in high vacuum and there are also some differences between air plasma and standard air conditions – in reduced atmospheres of 300 and 2000 Pa – with respective emissivity increase by a factor 3 and 2.5 in comparison with the virgin material, due to the different levels of oxidation. For the measurements carried out at atmospheric pressure, the increase of the emissivity is also 3 times higher compared to the virgin alloy.