Missing satellite cost NZ extra $3m because of delays

RNZ News

3 days ago

Artist rendering of MethaneSat.
Photo:
Supplied / Environmental Defence Fund
A satellite that has
gone missing in space
cost taxpayers $32 million, $3m more than originally planned, because of delays.
The extra cost was to staff a mission control that will now never be used to drive the satellite.
Leading scientists say too few questions were asked before deciding to invest in the mission, and red flags were missed.
However New Zealand Space Agency and scientists who worked on the mission say New Zealand has gained valuable experience.
The Space Agency, which sits inside the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE), says multiple delays to the satellite's launch meant University of Auckland needed more money to keep employing staff at its mission control centre.
The agency says $26m of the total was spent on New Zealand-based organisations.
Delays to the launch pushed out the date when the university was meant to take over the mission control.
The handover was then delayed another six months when the satellite was handed back to its manufacturer to work on unspecified problems.
The handover was finally due to happen in late June, when the satellite was lost.
The final cost to the government included $6m to the MethaneSAT organisation for flight software and other items, $12m to Rocket Lab for scoping and establishing the mission control, which it ran for the first year after launch, $6m to the University of Auckland to operate the mission control centre after Rocket Lab handed it over, and $6m to Earth Sciences NZ (formerly NIWA) for a science programme to measure farming's emissions methane from space.
The final $2m was for MBIE to manage the programme.
Earth Sciences NZ says the agricultural science programme already has a wealth of data and will continue as planned. The lead scientist for MethaneSAT says there's very little chance the satellite will be recovered.
The mission is a collaboration with the US-based Environmental Defense Fund.
Its chief scientist and MethaneSAT mission lead Dr Steven Hamburg said they did not know what caused the satellite to lose power and become unresponsive on 20 June.
"There's a very small chance, we were able to observe it by using another satellite to look at it and it does not currently have power. We are working it, we continue to work it, but we have to be realistic the probability of recovery is diminishing."
Hamburg said a group was investigating the cause.
RNZ has been asking about problems with the satellite since September and
was previously told its issues were "teething problems"
.
Hamburg said the MethaneSAT had been transparent, and the Space Agency said the mission had kept people as informed "as possible."
However University of Auckland physics professor Richard Easther said the space craft carrying the methane detector "seems to have had fairly persistent and deep-seated problems, pretty much from launch."
He said for most of the year it had been in orbit, it was not functioning properly.
Associate Professor Nicholas Rattenbury of the Department of Physics at University of Auckland said he sympathised with those involved in the mission, but the question needed to be asked of whether New Zealand should have taken a closer look "under the hood" before investing in MethaneSAT.
Dr Rattenbury questioned who was asking questions on behalf of taxpayers about the mission design, satellite construction and testing before the government committed the money.
He said the science sector had "very limited resources" to spend.
Space Minister Judith Collins has
declined to comment
on the loss or whether the public had been adequately informed during the mission.