Bezos-backed methane tracking satellite lost in space

Thomson Reuters

· Posted: Jul 03, 2025 1:36 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

An $88 cardinal outer backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos that detected lipid and state industry's emissions of the almighty greenhouse state methane has been mislaid successful space, the radical that operates it told Reuters connected Tuesday.

Methane is simply a potent greenhouse gas, with 80 times the warming powerfulness of c dioxide implicit a 20-year period. But galore methane leaks spell undetected, making the standard of contamination unclear.

MethaneSAT had been collecting emissions information and images from drilling sites, pipelines, and processing facilities astir the satellite since March, but went disconnected people astir 10 days ago, the Environmental Defense Fund, which led the initiative, said.
 
Its past known determination was implicit Svalbard successful Norway and EDF said it did not expect it to beryllium recovered arsenic it had mislaid power.
 
"We're seeing this arsenic a setback, not a failure," Amy Middleton, elder vice president astatine EDF, told Reuters. "We've made truthful overmuch advancement and truthful overmuch has been learned that if we hadn't taken this risk, we wouldn't person immoderate of these learnings."
 
The motorboat of MethaneSAT in March 2024 was a milestone successful a years-long run by EDF to clasp accountable the much than 120 countries that successful 2021 pledged to curb their methane emissions.

WATCH | Pollution-tracking outer is launched into abstraction (from 2024): 

A groundbreaking outer named MethaneSAT has been launched into abstraction with the extremity of tracking planetary methane emissions. Scientists anticipation the exertion volition assistance clasp lipid and state companies accountable successful the combat against clime change.
 
It besides sought to assistance enforce a further committedness from 50 lipid and state companies made astatine the Dubai COP28 clime acme successful December 2023 to destruct methane and regular state flaring.

Capping methane leaks a accelerated way to tackle clime change, accidental scientists

Given however potent methane is, scientists accidental capping leaks from lipid and state wells and instrumentality is 1 of the fastest ways to commencement tackling the occupation of planetary warming.

WATCH | Wells leaking pollutants:

A caller McGill University survey suggests that methane leaking from Canada’s abandoned lipid and state wells is astir 7 times higher than antecedently thought, and residents surviving adjacent them are calling connected the authorities to instrumentality urgent action.

While MethaneSAT was not the lone task to people outer information connected methane emissions, its backers said it provided much item connected emissions sources and it partnered with Google to to make a publicly-available planetary representation of emissions. 

EDF reported the mislaid outer to national agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Space Force connected Tuesday, it said.
 
Building and launching the outer outgo $88 million, according to the EDF. The enactment had received a $100 cardinal assistance from the Bezos Earth Fund successful 2020 and got different large fiscal enactment from Arnold Ventures, the Robertson Foundation and the TED Audacious Project and EDF donors. The task was besides partnered with the New Zealand Space Agency.

Canada's methane reductions

Since 2021, 155 countries person signed connected to a planetary pledge to trim methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, including Canada. Canada was 1 of the archetypal countries to found nationalist methane regulations for the lipid and state sector, and successful December 2023 acceptable a people to chopped methane emissions from the lipid and state assemblage by astatine slightest 75 per cent beneath 2012 levels, by 2030. 

There are different efforts to observe methane from space.

GHGSat, a backstage institution based successful Montreal, has developed high-resolution greenhouse state emissions sensing technology, truthful that satellites tin observe emissions — specified arsenic methane — from abstraction and find the root of them. 

While GHGSat is not nationalist information like MethaneSAT, it inactive provides accusation connected methane from lipid and state and different sources, specified arsenic landfills. In June 2024, the latest enactment that the national authorities took to reduce methane emissions was to merchandise draught regulations to trim landfill methane emissions.

GHGSat also provides information to the International Methane Emissions Observatory nether the United Nations Environment Program. They also launched 2 caller satellites successful June 2025, bringing the full to 12 satellites successful orbit.