A crucial methane-tracking satellite has died in orbit

A satellite known as Méthanesat, planning to transform our vision of methane programs, lost power less than a year and a half after its launch.

Methanesat is “probably not recoverable”, according to a declaration by the Environment Defense Fund (EDF), the non -profit organization which launched and exploited the satellite. Its loss is a major blow to efforts to follow and stop methane emissions, which are responsible for about a third of the increase in global temperature to date.

When Methanesat was launched in March 2024, he joined an increasing constellation of satellites designed to detect invisible methane emissions from key sources such as oil and gas wells, cattle, discharges and wetlands. While some satellites have zoomed in individual sources and others could browse whole regions, methanesat was particularly suitable for detecting methane on a medium scale, which makes it ideal for identifying emissions from oil and gas production.

This point of view was intended to estimate methane emissions from the regions known for the production of fossil fuels, such as the Permian basin in the southwest of the United States. This would also help efforts to identify and cap the largest sources of powerful greenhouse gases.

“This is a significant loss,” said Jason McKeever at Ghgsat, a Canadian company that had planned to use Methanesat data to make decisions about the place to point its own satellites. “Methanesat was unique. It was in an intermediate special area.”

The satellite, which cost nearly $ 100 million to build and launch, began collecting data in June of last year and published its first methane detections from oil and gas basins in November 2024. The researchers worked on means of automating data so that the satellite, which is still orbit, can provide information on approximately real shows.

“We had just started a data of publication of data every two weeks,” said Jon Coifman at the Environment Defense Fund. “The satellite had produced excellent information.”

According to the EDF declaration, Mission Operations lost contact with the satellite on June 20. “After continuing all the options to restore communications, we learned this morning that the satellite lost power,” he said.

The Methanesat team is still investigating what has not been bad. He will continue to share the data that the satellite was able to collect before losing electricity, as well as the algorithms developed to analyze it.

“We are examining all kinds of options,” says Coifman. Launching another satellite is not out of the table, he said.