Latest news with #MethaneSAT
Scoop
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Space Minister Judith Collins Goes To Ground Over Alleged Government Failures Managing NZ's First Space Mission
Space Minister Judith Collins has gone to ground over alleged government failures managing New Zealand's first official, taxpayer-funded satellite mission. Last year, Collins welcomed the launch of MethaneSAT as "a milestone in the development of New Zealand's space sector". However, since the methane-hunting satellite lost communication with its owners, she has refused to answer questions on whether there would be any form of review of New Zealand's involvement in the mission. RNZ has learned a senior astrophysicist wrote to government officials in March warning the public was being given a "materially incomplete" picture. MethaneSAT says it has been "truthful and open" in disclosing the spacecraft's operational issues. New Zealand spent $32 million being part of the mission led by US non-profit the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to find and share hidden sources of methane emissions. The government paid for both Rocket Lab and Auckland University to establish mission control centres, with the goal that Rocket Lab would handle the console initially before handing over to the university so staff and students could get hands-on experience. The satellite became unresponsive in June after just 15 months in orbit, before students could reap the benefits of the investment. In a more detailed statement than previously provided, MethaneSAT says the spacecraft used a new type of thruster technology (which steers the spacecraft and keeps it at the right height) and that, combined with frequent bouts spent in "safe mode" early in the mission, were time-consuming and labour-intensive for the ground operations crew. It says "operational activities" meant the satellite was not able to spend as much time downlinking data as it had hoped for early in the mission. The mission was supposed to last five years. The cause of the spacecraft's demise isn't yet known. Several experts RNZ has spoken to in the space industry lamented the choice to spend tens of millions being involved in a third party project, rather than making the country's first space mission something designed and launched from New Zealand. Political leaders declined to front on calls for a thorough review. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has blamed Labour for overseeing the initial investment and referred follow-up questions to Collins. That's despite the launch and orbit happening under the current government. Collins has repeatedly refused to comment and referred all questions, including questions abut whether the government would hold a review, to the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), which houses the country's Space Agency. The Space Agency, meanwhile, said it had no reason to doubt the judgement of the "seasoned professionals" involved in choosing and building the spacecraft. However, a former employee of Rocket Lab, which operated the satellite's mission control for the first year after launch, has said there was a failure to select the right spacecraft manufacturer and a failure "to focus on the right level of technical rigor [sic] pre launch", and during assembly and testing. Leigh Foster said he and his former team spent many late nights and weekends developing a system to operate and control the satellite but they "never really got to prove to ourselves how impressive it really was" after the satellite was lost in space, before handover to the University of Auckland. Foster's comments were made on LinkedIn. When contacted by RNZ he said he was not able to comment further. Astrophysicist claims reassurances "incomplete" Astrophysicist Richard Easther wrote to government officials in March warning them that they were allowing the public to be given a "materially incomplete" picture about the spacecraft's status. MBIE replied to him saying it was not responsible for statements to the media about MethaneSAT. Easther now says the ministry was "played like a fiddle" over the country's first official space mission. But MethaneSAT says it was truthful and open in disclosing the problems, which included ground crews grappling with operating a new type of, labour-intensive thruster. It maintains the issues were not out of the ordinary. The ministry says it was limited on what it could say in public due to "obligations of confidence and commercial confidentiality". However Easther says MBIE should not have signed up to any deal that prevented it being transparent with taxpayers on the fate of their money. 'No significant issues' Easther's letters to MBIE in March queried statements by MethaneSAT's owners, EDF, to RNZ in October 2024, when RNZ was told there were no significant issues with the satellite. The statement was issued after discussions between MBIE, MethaneSAT's owners (EDF) and Crown research institute NIWA (now Earth Sciences NZ) over how to respond to RNZ's queries to all three organisations, with MethaneSAT/EDF directing the final answers. Less than three months after that statement, MethaneSAT missed a planned deadline for handing the console to the University of Auckland. MBIE did not answer questions on why, and official information requests came back heavily redacted. Then, in March, MethaneSAT announced it was temporarily transferring control to Blue Canyon to address challenges and improve efficiency. MBIE offered no further explanation. That prompted astronomer Michele Bannister of the University of Canterbury to call for future taxpayer funding for space missions to be subject to competition, with clear and transparent milestones. In May, in response to specific questions from RNZ, MethaneSAT acknowledged the spacecraft had been regularly having to be restarted from safe mode using a time-consuming process. It said handover to University of Auckland was on track for no later than June. The spacecraft lost contact with the ground on June 20. Warnings to government Easther told MBIE that the hand-back to Blue Canyon made MethaneSAT's earlier statements to RNZ difficult to trust. He said there was concern in the space community that "there has never been an extended period in which the satellite had "no issues"". He also said there was "deep concern in the space research community that the level of openness about the status of the mission ... falls far short of any reasonable expectations for a mission that has received substantial public money". The letters added that this was a comparatively small satellite and not particularly complex by space mission standards, so the fact that it had taken 18 months to commission was unusual and pointed to likely future problems. Easther said MBIE should not have allowed MethaneSAT to tell RNZ and the public "that the spacecraft was essentially working normally". MBIE responded to him that MethaneSAT was unlike any prior New Zealand science investment and brought obligations of confidentiality and commercial sensitivity "not found in other programmes". On the question of whether MethaneSAT had given accurate statements to RNZ, it said simply that: "MethaneSAT LLC has overall responsible for the status of the mission and related media queries". 'Obligations of confidence' MBIE has responded to criticism of its handling of New Zealand's investment, including the alleged failure to properly disclose problems or "look under the hood" before launch. That last criticism was from Associate Professor in physics Dr Nick Rattenbury, who wrote in a post-mortem of the mission that "New Zealand has more talent and good research ideas than funding to support them" and that "one could reasonably ask to what extent experts were consulted during the decision-making process to invest in the satellite mission, and who was applying due diligence on behalf of New Zealand taxpayers". The deputy head of the Space Agency said MBIE had been actively involved and "well across the challenges the mission has faced". Andrew Johnson said the spacecraft provider "was selected by the Environmental Defense Fund / MethaneSAT LLC before MBIE joined the mission". "The teams at MethaneSAT and Environmental Defense Fund worked with some of the most seasoned professionals in the commercial and government aerospace sectors. We had no reason to doubt their judgement," he said. As for informing taxpayers about the problems, he said the agency had been limited on what it could say due to "obligations of confidence and commercial confidentiality". "We anticipated reflecting on lessons learned from our first active space mission involvement ... and we'll be gathering those lessons in the coming months," said Johnson. MethaneSAT says it was 'truthful and honest' MethaneSAT pointed out that it did acknowledge delays in commissioning the thrusters in October, when RNZ asked about apparent delays to the flow of methane readings. In October it told RNZ "the process as a whole has taken longer than we hoped, but there were no notable or particular complications outside the realm of what would be anticipated". "Again, there is a lot of new technology on this mission, both hardware and software. "For instance, commissioning our thrusters went slower than planned because they are a new model and the vendor was modifying their checkout procedure for us as we were going along. "As of now there are no issues with the satellite or its data collection performance." It is not clear whether the earlier problems were linked to the spacecraft's demise, which is still being investigated. MethaneSAT strongly denied giving RNZ incomplete information. "MethaneSAT has been truthful and open in disclosing the operational issues experienced by the spacecraft early in the MethaneSAT mission," said spokesperson Jon Coifman. "Every spacecraft discovers things which work differently in space than planned, requiring updates to procedures, processes, and software. MethaneSAT was no different," he said. Coifman also shared new details about the safe mode and thruster issues. "MethaneSAT did have a number of safe mode entries early in the mission," he said. "This was due to two factors. "The onboard fault detection and management software was set with very conservative limits at launch. This is standard operating procedure. After time in orbit and experience gained from operations, those limits were relaxed to reduce the number of "false positives" that trigger safe mode. Those updates were implemented over the second half of 2024," he said. The second factor was that a particularly active solar cycle also triggered "safe modes", he said. "When this happens, the onboard fault detection software places the spacecraft into safe mode for the ground operators to assess and reset the required electronics. These ... events continued throughout the life of MethaneSAT as the high solar activity continued. MethaneSAT was not designed with the costly radiation-hardened components found, for example, on military spacecraft," said Coifman. "Regardless of the cause, safe mode requires the ground operations team to perform time-consuming recovery steps," he said. "This too was intentional at the start of the mission (again as it is with every satellite) to ensure a human reviewed each event and confirmed there was nothing more serious or new which required further study. "One objective in handing the satellite to Blue Canyon was to automate much of this recovery to reduce the amount of time required." Coifman also provided new details on challenges faced using the thrusters. "The thrusters on MethaneSAT are relatively new technology. As such, they are more labor [sic] intensive to operate, and have [been] a learning curve for the mission operations team who may be more familiar with other types of thrusters," he said. RNZ has previously revealed there were urgent discussions between MethaneSAT, MBIE and Rocket Lab about updates to staffing levels required to operate the spacecraft, during the time Rocket Lab was on the console. The university also required $3 million more than planned to keep staff employed during delays, taking the cost to New Zealand from $29m to $32m. Coifman added, "The thrusters were operational before and after the handover to Blue Canyon. As with the safe mode recovery, a primary objective for Blue Canyon was to provide more automation in thruster operations to reduce the workload on the mission operators." He said MethaneSAT was fully tested before launch according to best-practices and protocols established by NASA and the commercial spaceflight industry. "There is no reason to believe that additional testing would have addressed the typical operational issues experienced by MethaneSAT on orbit," he said. Luxon blames Labour RNZ asked Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at a media appearance last week whether there would be a review of New Zealand's investment, to avoid a repeat of any mistakes. "To be clear, this was a decision by the previous Labour government not my government. That's an issue now for MBIE to respond to," he said. Asked if he had spoken to Collins, he said: "I haven't but MBIE is the right place for that to be discussed." RNZ followed up with Luxon's office and clarified that criticism from the local space industry covered the failure to monitor and inform the public about the delays, which happened under the current government. Although the decision to invest was made under Labour, the satellite's launch and time in orbit happened under the current coalition. Luxon's office referred questions to Collins, who, for the second time in as many months, refused to comment. Easther said Collins should be asking questions, given she had previously answered to Parliament about delays. In March, Collins answered a series of Parliamentary questions from the Green Party about whether she was aware of any delays in the mission. She referred to delays to the launch date, but did not refer to any issues or delays relating to the satellite's operation once it was in orbit. She said the mission had been returning "high quality data since launch". Collins was also asked why there had been delays handing control to the University of Auckland. She said control had been temporarily transferred to Blue Canyon Technologies to enable the manufacturer to address "challenges which are affecting the satellite's operation" without offering detail. Asked about suggestions of staffing issues, Collins said: "I am aware that MBIE officials are engaging with MethaneSAT partners on New Zealand's support for the mission. Staffing requirements are part of these routine conversations." The extra $3 million payment from MBIE to the university emerged later. Easther said the Minister's answers were incomplete. "When these answers were written it was a full year since MethaneSAT was launched and in that time it published just a few percent of the data we would have expected if it was working as planned," he said. "On top of this, they had just announced the unplanned return of control to Blue Canyon for trouble-shooting - it was clear to everyone watching that there were major delays and hardware issues but you can't learn that from the Minister's answers. "Likewise, nobody has ever doubted that the detector was working - it is the "bread and butter" parts of the spacecraft that failed." Future of university's mission control centre 'under discussion' RNZ asked Mahima Fisher, an Operations Engineer in the mission control team, what would happen to the team and its facilities now that it will not drive MethaneSAT. She said she had been given a chance to learn from commanding and controlling the satellite during preparations for handover, but was "was very disappointed that I could not be a bigger part of the mission". Fisher said the mission control centre would "continue to exist as a physical space to operate future missions. However, the discussions about the future of the operations team are ongoing". She said students had got to carry out mission planning for MethaneSAT, "which was a unique, powerful and inspiring experience" ... and that MethaneSAT did collect data over the last few months. "I hope we take the time to reflect honestly on this mission, whatever that looks like," said Fisher.
RNZ News
14-07-2025
- Science
- RNZ News
Space Minister Judith Collins goes to ground over alleged government failures managing NZ's first space mission
Space Minister Judith Collins. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith Space Minister Judith Collins has gone to ground over alleged government failures managing New Zealand's first official, taxpayer-funded satellite mission. Last year, Collins welcomed the launch of MethaneSAT as "a milestone in the development of New Zealand's space sector". However, since the methane-hunting satellite lost communication with its owners, she has refused to answer questions on whether there would be any form of review of New Zealand's involvement in the mission. RNZ has learned that a senior astrophysicist wrote to government officials in March warning the public was being given a "materially incomplete" picture. MethaneSAT says it has been "truthful and open" in disclosing the spacecraft's operational issues. New Zealand spent $32 million being part of the mission led by US non-profit the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to find and share hidden sources of methane emissions. The government paid for both Rocket Lab and Auckland University to establish mission control centres, with the goal that Rocket Lab would handle the console initially before handing over to the university so staff and students could get hands-on experience. The satellite became unresponsive in June after just 15 months in orbit, before students could reap the benefits of the investment. Artist's rendering of MethaneSAT, the satellite EDF developed. Photo: Supplied / Environmental Defence Fund In a more detailed statement than previously provided, MethaneSAT says the spacecraft used a new type of thruster technology (which steers the spacecraft and keeps it at the right height) and that, combined with frequent bouts spent in "safe mode" early in the mission, were time-consuming and labour-intensive for the ground operations crew. It says "operational activities" meant the satellite was not able to spend as much time downlinking data as it had hoped for early in the mission. The mission was supposed to last five years. The cause of the spacecraft's demise isn't yet known. Several experts RNZ has spoken to in the space industry lamented the choice to spend tens of millions being involved in a third party project, rather than making the country's first space mission something designed and launched from New Zealand. Political leaders declined to front on calls for a thorough review. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has blamed Labour for overseeing the initial investment and referred follow-up questions to Collins. That's despite the launch and orbit happening under the current government. Collins has repeatedly refused to comment and referred all questions, including questions abut whether the government would hold a review, to the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), which houses the country's Space Agency. A snapshot of methane data collected from the Uinta Basin on a beta version of the data platform shows how an area's methane emissions correlate with oil and gas infrastructure. Photo: Supplied / Environmental Defence Fund The Space Agency, meanwhile, said it had no reason to doubt the judgement of the "seasoned professionals" involved in choosing and building the spacecraft. However, a former employee of Rocket Lab, which operated the satellite's mission control for the first year after launch, has said there was a failure to select the right spacecraft manufacturer and a failure "to focus on the right level of technical rigor [sic] pre launch", and during assembly and testing. Leigh Foster said he and his former team spent many late nights and weekends developing a system to operate and control the satellite but they "never really got to prove to ourselves how impressive it really was" after the satellite was lost in space, before handover to the University of Auckland. Foster's comments were made on LinkedIn. When contacted by RNZ he said he was not able to comment further. Former Rocket Lab employee Leigh Foster. Photo: Supplied / LinkedIn Astrophysicist Richard Easther wrote to government officials in March warning them that they were allowing the public to be given a "materially incomplete" picture about the spacecraft's status. MBIE replied to him saying it was not responsible for statements to the media about MethaneSAT. Easther now says the ministry was "played like a fiddle" over the country's first official space mission. But MethaneSAT says it was truthful and open in disclosing the problems, which included ground crews grappling with operating a new type of, labour-intensive thruster. It maintains the issues were not out of the ordinary. The ministry says it was limited on what it could say in public due to "obligations of confidence and commercial confidentiality". However Easther says MBIE should not have signed up to any deal that prevented it being transparent with taxpayers on the fate of their money. Astrophysicist Richard Easther. Photo: supplied Easther's letters to MBIE in March queried statements by MethaneSAT's owners, EDF, to RNZ in October 2024, when RNZ was told there were no significant issues with the satellite. The statement was issued after discussions between MBIE, MethaneSAT's owners (EDF) and Crown research institute NIWA (now Earth Sciences NZ) over how to respond to RNZ's queries to all three organisations, with MethaneSAT/EDF directing the final answers. Less than three months after that statement, MethaneSAT missed a planned deadline for handing the console to the University of Auckland. MBIE did not answer questions on why, and official information requests came back heavily redacted. Then, in March, MethaneSAT announced it was temporarily transferring control to Blue Canyon to address challenges and improve efficiency. MBIE offered no further explanation . That prompted astronomer Michele Bannister of the University of Canterbury to call for future taxpayer funding for space missions to be subject to competition, with clear and transparent milestones. In May, in response to specific questions from RNZ, MethaneSAT acknowledged the spacecraft had been regularly having to be restarted from safe mode using a time-consuming process. It said handover to University of Auckland was on track for no later than June. The spacecraft lost contact with the ground on June 20. University of Canterbury planetary astronomer, Dr Michele Bannister. Photo: University of Canterbury Easther told MBIE that the hand-back to Blue Canyon made MethaneSAT's earlier statements to RNZ difficult to trust. He said there was concern in the space community that "there has never been an extended period in which the satellite had "no issues"". He also said there was "deep concern in the space research community that the level of openness about the status of the mission ... falls far short of any reasonable expectations for a mission that has received substantial public money". The letters added that this was a comparatively small satellite and not particularly complex by space mission standards, so the fact that it had taken 18 months to commission was unusual and pointed to likely future problems. Easther said MBIE it should not have allowed MethaneSAT to tell RNZ and the public "that the spacecraft was essentially working normally". MBIE responded to him that MethaneSAT was unlike any prior New Zealand science investment and brought obligations of confidentiality and commercial sensitivity "not found in other programmes". On the question of whether MethaneSAT had given accurate statements to RNZ, it said simply that: "MethaneSAT LLC has overall responsible for the status of the mission and related media queries". Mahima Seth and Vernon Lewis watch the launch of the MethaneSAT satellite at Mission Control, University of Auckland. Photo: Alexia Russell/The Detail MBIE has responded to criticism of its handling of New Zealand's investment, including the alleged failure to properly disclose problems or "look under the hood" before launch. That last criticism was from Associate Professor in physics Dr Nick Rattenbury, who wrote in a post-mortem of the mission that "New Zealand has more talent and good research ideas than funding to support them" and that "one could reasonably ask to what extent experts were consulted during the decision-making process to invest in the satellite mission, and who was applying due diligence on behalf of New Zealand taxpayers". The deputy head of the Space Agency said MBIE had been actively involved and "well across the challenges the mission has faced". Andrew Johnson said the spacecraft provider "was selected by the Environmental Defense Fund / MethaneSAT LLC before MBIE joined the mission". "The teams at MethaneSAT and Environmental Defense Fund worked with some of the most seasoned professionals in the commercial and government aerospace sectors. We had no reason to doubt their judgement," he said. As for informing taxpayers about the problems, he said the agency had been limited on what it could say due to "obligations of confidence and commercial confidentiality". "We anticipated reflecting on lessons learned from our first active space mission involvement ... and we'll be gathering those lessons in the coming months," said Johnson. Associate Professor in physics Dr Nick Rattenbury. Photo: RNZ / Claire Concannon MethaneSAT pointed out that it did acknowledge delays in commissioning the thrusters in October, when RNZ asked about apparent delays to the flow of methane readings. In October it told RNZ "the process as a whole has taken longer than we hoped, but there were no notable or particular complications outside the realm of what would be anticipated". "Again, there is a lot of new technology on this mission, both hardware and software. "For instance, commissioning our thrusters went slower than planned because they are a new model and the vendor was modifying their checkout procedure for us as we were going along. "As of now there are no issues with the satellite or its data collection performance." It is not clear whether the earlier problems were linked to the spacecraft's demise, which is still being investigated . MethaneSAT strongly denied giving RNZ incomplete information. "MethaneSAT has been truthful and open in disclosing the operational issues experienced by the spacecraft early in the MethaneSAT mission," said spokesperson Jon Coifman. "Every spacecraft discovers things which work differently in space than planned, requiring updates to procedures, processes, and software. MethaneSAT was no different," he said. MethaneSAT Global Media Unit associate vice president Jon Coifman. Photo: Supplied / MethaneSAT Coifman also shared new details about the safe mode and thruster issues. "MethaneSAT did have a number of safe mode entries early in the mission," he said. "This was due to two factors. "The onboard fault detection and management software was set with very conservative limits at launch. This is standard operating procedure. After time in orbit and experience gained from operations, those limits were relaxed to reduce the number of "false positives" that trigger safe mode. Those updates were implemented over the second half of 2024," he said. The second factor was that a particularly active solar cycle also triggered "safe modes", he said. "When this happens, the onboard fault detection software places the spacecraft into safe mode for the ground operators to assess and reset the required electronics. These ... events continued throughout the life of MethaneSAT as the high solar activity continued. MethaneSAT was not designed with the costly radiation-hardened components found, for example, on military spacecraft," said Coifman. "Regardless of the cause, safe mode requires the ground operations team to perform time-consuming recovery steps," he said. "This too was intentional at the start of the mission (again as it is with every satellite) to ensure a human reviewed each event and confirmed there was nothing more serious or new which required further study. "One objective in handing the satellite to Blue Canyon was to automate much of this recovery to reduce the amount of time required." The MethaneSAT device delivered by a SpaceX rocket on March 5, 2024 Photo: ©2024 Ball Aerospace Coifman also provided new details on challenges faced using the thrusters. "The thrusters on MethaneSAT are relatively new technology. As such, they are more labor [sic] intensive to operate, and have [been] a learning curve for the mission operations team who may be more familiar with other types of thrusters," he said. RNZ has previously revealed there were urgent discussions between MethaneSAT, MBIE and Rocket Lab about updates to staffing levels required to operate the spacecraft, during the time Rocket Lab was on the console. The university also required $3 million more than planned to keep staff employed during delays, taking the cost to New Zealand from $29m to $32m. Coifman added, "The thrusters were operational before and after the handover to Blue Canyon. As with the safe mode recovery, a primary objective for Blue Canyon was to provide more automation in thruster operations to reduce the workload on the mission operators." He said MethaneSAT was fully tested before launch according to best-practices and protocols established by NASA and the commercial spaceflight industry. "There is no reason to believe that additional testing would have addressed the typical operational issues experienced by MethaneSAT on orbit," he said. MethaneSAT was set to target areas all over the globe to analyse, concentrating on oil and gas pipelines. Photo: MethaneSAT RNZ asked Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at a media appearance last week whether there would be a review of New Zealand's investment, to avoid a repeat of any mistakes. "To be clear, this was a decision by the previous Labour government not my government. That's an issue now for MBIE to respond to," he said. Asked if he had spoken to Collins, he said: "I haven't but MBIE is the right place for that to be discussed." RNZ followed up with Luxon's office and clarified that criticism from the local space industry covered the failure to monitor and inform the public about the delays, which happened under the current government. Although the decision to invest was made under Labour, the satellite's launch and time in orbit happened under the current coalition. Luxon's office referred questions to Collins, who, for the second time in as many months, refused to comment. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is blaming the previous Labour-led government. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi Easther said Collins should be asking questions, given she had previously answered to Parliament about delays. In March, Collins answered a series of Parliamentary questions from the Green Party about whether she was aware of any delays in the mission. She referred to delays to the launch date, but did not refer to any issues or delays relating to the satellite's operation once it was in orbit. She said the mission had been returning "high quality data since launch". Collins was also asked why there had been delays handing control to the University of Auckland. She said control had been temporarily transferred to Blue Canyon Technologies to enable the manufacturer to address "challenges which are affecting the satellite's operation" without offering detail. Asked about suggestions of staffing issues, Collins said: "I am aware that MBIE officials are engaging with MethaneSAT partners on New Zealand's support for the mission. Staffing requirements are part of these routine conversations." The extra $3 million payment from MBIE to the university emerged later. Easther said the Minister's answers were incomplete. "When these answers were written it was a full year since MethaneSAT was launched and in that time it published just a few percent of the data we would have expected if it was working as planned," he said. "On top of this, they had just announced the unplanned return of control to Blue Canyon for trouble-shooting - it was clear to everyone watching that there were major delays and hardware issues but you can't learn that from the Minister's answers. "Likewise, nobody has ever doubted that the detector was working - it is the "bread and butter" parts of the spacecraft that failed." Ops engineers Mahima Seth and Vernon Lewis at the University of Auckland's mission control centre. Photo: University of Auckland RNZ asked Mahima Fisher, the leader of the Auckland University's mission control team, what would happen to the team and its facilities now that it will not drive MethaneSAT. She said she had been given a chance to learn from commanding and controlling the satellite during preparations for handover, but was "was very disappointed that I could not be a bigger part of the mission". Fisher said the mission control centre would "continue to exist as a physical space to operate future missions. However, the discussions about the future of the operations team are ongoing". She said students had got to carry out mission planning for MethaneSAT, "which was a unique, powerful and inspiring experience" ... and that MethaneSAT did collect data over the last few months. "I hope we take the time to reflect honestly on this mission, whatever that looks like," said Fisher. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Forbes
11-07-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Why MethaneSAT's Sudden Silence Should Concern Us All
An artist's rendering of MethaneSAT, a satellite designed to measure methane pollution around the ... More world. Why Methane Matters Methane is the second-most significant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, but it is far more potent in the short term, trapping over 80 times more heat than CO₂ over a 20-year period. It leaks from pipelines, fracking sites, livestock operations, and landfills, and plays a central role in accelerating global warming. The total yearly methane (CH4) emissions from human activities expressed as weight in megatonnes ... More (Mt) Unlike CO₂, however, methane breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere. That means cutting methane emissions is one of the fastest and most effective ways to reduce global temperatures in the near term. Watch my short explainer video on how we can cut methane emissions—and why reducing short-lived climate pollutants like methane could help cool the planet by up to 0.5°C in just a few decades. MethaneSAT was created to provide clear, independent, high-resolution data on where methane was leaking—and who was leaking it. It could single out individual oil fields and drill sites from orbit. And its early results were troubling: emissions from major oil and gas fields in North America and Central Asia were found to be several times higher than companies had officially reported. What MethaneSAT Managed to Expose Before Falling Silent A Sudden Silence The satellite's loss of contact came without warning. According to EDF, the satellite likely experienced a power failure, possibly due to issues with its onboard thruster system or the effects of solar activity. It may never be recovered. It's too early to draw conclusions. Space is inherently risky. But when a mission with this kind of potential—and this kind of impact—stops working just as it hits its stride, it raises difficult questions. Was it just bad luck? "I'm afraid they'll find a way to shut it down"Earlier this year, during a Zoom call to explore a potential collaboration between and MethaneSAT, I spoke with a high-level executive involved in the mission. During our conversation, the person said bluntly that they feared the satellite could be shut down. "I'm afraid they'll find a way to shut it down," they told me. The satellite ultimately failed due to what appears to be a technical issue. But the fact that such a fear could be voiced at all—that a scientific mission could be seen as politically vulnerable—speaks volumes about the world we now live in. A Broader Crisis in Climate Monitoring MethaneSAT's loss is not an isolated event. Many of the world's most important Earth-observing satellites are aging rapidly. NASA's Terra, Aqua, and Aura satellites, launched in the early 2000s, are nearing the end of their operational lifespans. By the end of this decade, most of them will likely be decommissioned. Yet there is no comprehensive replacement plan. Instead, U.S. political momentum is moving decisively in the opposite direction. The 2025 budget proposal from the House of Representatives includes dramatic cuts to Earth science programs at NASA and NOAA. These cuts threaten everything from climate monitoring to weather forecasting. At the very moment we need more eyes on the planet, we're pulling the plug. This week, every living NASA science chief—past and present—signed a joint letter opposing these cuts, warning that eliminating climate science capabilities at this stage would be 'flying blind into the storm.' And the assault goes even deeper. The Trump administration has also proposed shutting down the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, the lab that has measured atmospheric CO₂ continuously since 1958. This is the birthplace of the Keeling Curve—the iconic record that shows CO₂ rising from 313 parts per million to over 430 ppm today. It is the most conclusive, long-term evidence of human-caused climate change. And now, it too is on the chopping block. If enacted, these proposals would eliminate much of the U.S. greenhouse gas monitoring network, from northern Alaska to the South Pole. Transparency Under Threat MethaneSAT's data was being integrated into broader climate tracking initiatives, such as Climate TRACE—a groundbreaking project backed by former Vice President Al Gore that aggregates real-time emissions data from satellites and AI-driven analysis. As I detailed in my previous Forbes article, Al Gore's Real-Time Climate Data Just Went Live—Here's Why It Matters, TRACE represents a revolutionary leap in emissions accountability. But the loss of MethaneSAT creates a critical gap in this otherwise powerful global emissions surveillance network. The Fossil Gas Industry's Last Stand The Methane Regulation is an EU law passed in 2024 aimed at reducing methane emissions in the energy sector, especially from oil, gas, and coal. While it came into force in 2024, rules for importers start applying gradually, and full compliance is expected by 2026–2027, depending on the provision. Now, the European Commission is considering weakening the Methane Regulation, likely due to threats of tariffs coming from the Trump administration. The regulation doesn't ban imports—it just says that if you want to sell gas or oil to the EU, you have to measure, report, and reduce your methane emissions. Pretty reasonable, right? But now, of course, the fossil fuel industry shows up, teary-eyed, hat in hand, pleading for mercy. In an open letter this week, industry reps said the regulation is too complicated, the timelines are too tight, and the compliance burden is just too heavy. They're asking for a grace period, contract protections, and a delay in enforcement. Why? Because it's hard, they say, to figure out exactly where their fuel came from or what the emissions were. Because some EU member states haven't finished their national rulebooks. Because compliance might cost money. The fossil gas industry rakes in profits in the hundreds of billions of dollars every year. They've had plenty of time and capital to invest in tracking systems and cleaner infrastructure. Instead, many of them sat on the cash—or handed it out to shareholders—and now claim they're not ready. This regulation didn't come out of nowhere. The warning signs were clear. The legislation process was long. The deadlines were known. Most infuriating of all, this regulation simply asks companies to do what any responsible, ethical organization would be doing of their own accord. For decades, fossil fuel companies have externalized the cost of methane leakage—dumping a climate-damaging gas into the atmosphere while claiming their product is a clean 'bridge fuel.' This regulation is one of the first serious efforts to change that dynamic. It says: if you want access to the EU market, you have to take responsibility for your environmental footprint. Powerful Interests at Stake MethaneSAT's silence is undoubtedly welcomed by fossil fuel industries that stood to lose significantly from increased transparency and accountability. The disappearance of such detailed emissions data removes immediate pressure and scrutiny, allowing polluters to continue claiming to take action to curb emissions while doing nothing of the sort. Meanwhile, the planet's remaining carbon budget is rapidly running out. What's Next? We may never know exactly why MethaneSAT stopped transmitting. But its loss underscores a larger issue: our ability to monitor the Earth—our atmosphere, oceans, emissions—is being not just neglected, but deliberately defunded at a time when it should be rapidly expanding. Imagine a hospital losing its ability to scan a patient mid-diagnosis. Doctors would be blind to the progression of the disease, unable to treat or even assess it. The loss of MethaneSAT is the climate equivalent. Without precise, reliable data, efforts to track and mitigate global warming risk becoming guesswork. Meanwhile, critical climate infrastructure is being targeted elsewhere. The Trump administration's 2025 budget proposal seeks to shut down the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory—home of the Keeling Curve and the longest-running CO₂ record in the world. It would also defund NOAA's broader greenhouse gas monitoring network, threatening continuity in our core climate records. And yet, in just a few months of operation, MethaneSAT showed what's possible: near-real-time, high-resolution emissions data—independent, accessible, and globally impactful. The response to its failure should not be retreat, but reinforcement. Just because one satellite failed doesn't mean the mission failed. If anything, it proved how essential this kind of monitoring is. New satellites must be launched. Not eventually—now. Because we can't solve what we can't see. And we should never accept flying blind as the new normal.
Gizmodo
03-07-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Lost in Space: A ‘Game-Changing' Emissions Satellite Just Went Dark
An $88 million satellite backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos is lost in space. MethaneSAT, designed to sniff out sources of methane emissions across the globe, only survived about 15 months in Earth's orbit before meeting its untimely end. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which launched the satellite in March 2024, announced its demise on July 1. The organization revealed that MethaneSAT suddenly went silent on June 20, and its mission operations team has been unable to re-establish contact ever since. Now, they believe the satellite has lost power altogether. Steven Hamburg, EDF's chief scientist and leader of the MethaneSAT mission, told Science there was no previous indication of a problem. 'Not one of my better days or weeks,' he said. When MethaneSAT launched, EDF promised it would be a 'game-changer' for tracking planet-warming methane emissions, helping regulators address point sources of this potent greenhouse gas. In some ways, it has been. For over a year, this satellite helped pinpoint industrial sources of methane emissions—primarily those produced by the oil and gas industry. This greenhouse gas is incredibly potent, trapping 28 times more heat in Earth's atmosphere over a 100-year time period than carbon dioxide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Experts know methane emissions primarily stem from agriculture, fossil fuel production, and decomposition of landfill waste, but its point sources are difficult to locate and quantify individually. MethaneSAT, developed with the help of a $100 million grant from Jeff Bezos's Earth Fund, aimed to make this easier. While other satellites—such as the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5—can map methane on larger scales, MethaneSAT's state-of-the-art spectrometers could detect smaller emissions across entire oil and gas fields. At the same time, it zeroed in on hot spots with unprecedented precision, producing high-resolution snapshots of methane 'leaks.' 'Thanks to MethaneSAT, we have gained critical insight about the distribution and volume of methane being released from oil and gas production areas,' the EDF statement reads. 'We have also developed an unprecedented capability to interpret the measurements from space and translate them into volumes of methane released. This capacity will be valuable to other missions.' Still, it's a huge bummer that MethaneSAT's operational days are over. This satellite was supposed to survive five years in orbit, circling the Earth 15 times per day to produce a wealth of freely available, near-real-time data. This would have made tracking and regulating emissions much easier for both companies and regulators. The data would also have been available to stakeholders, including citizens, governments, investors, and gas importers. EDF hopes the satellite's legacy will live on. 'EDF and MethaneSAT remain firmly committed to our core purpose of turning data into action to protect the climate, including reducing methane emissions from the global oil and gas industry,' the organization stated. EDF will continue processing the data it has retrieved from the satellite, with plans to release additional images of regional-scale methane emissions from fossil fuel production over the coming months. The group will also work with global partners to leverage the algorithms and associated software built to convert its observations into emissions estimates, as well as its high-precision technology. Other satellites could make use of these assets to fill in the gap MethaneSAT left behind. EDF has not shared plans to launch another satellite. 'We're going to take a pause,' Hamburg told Science. 'Obviously, we've suffered a loss,' he said. 'I have a large team of people who have put their heart and soul into what many people said was impossible.' Hopefully, MethaneSAT's successes encourage other innovators to continue its mission. 'To solve the climate challenge requires bold action and risk-taking and this satellite was at the leading edge of science, technology, and advocacy,' EDF stated.
Daily Tribune
03-07-2025
- Science
- Daily Tribune
Bezos-backed methanetracking satellite lost in space
TDT | Wellington A satellite backed by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has been lost in space while carrying out an important climate change mission, New Zealand officials said yesterday. Designed to measure greenhouse gas emissions with 'unprecedented resolution', the MethaneSAT space probe was also funded by Wellington and the USbased Environmental Defense Fund. Plagued with technical problems, the satellite recently stopped responding to its Earth-bound controllers. 'Clearly, this is a disappointing development,' said Andrew Johnson, a senior official at the New Zealand Space Agency. 'As those who work in the space sector know, space is inherently challenging, and every attempt -- successful or not -- pushes the boundaries of what we know and what we're capable of.'
