Space mystery: Bezos-backed satellite tracking methane leaks on Earth vanishes

An $88 million satellite backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos, designed to track methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, has gone missing in space, according to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which spearheaded the project.

MethaneSAT, launched in March 2024, had been monitoring emissions from drilling sites, pipelines, and processing facilities worldwide.

However, it veered off course around 10 days ago, and its last known position was above Svalbard, Norway.

EDF confirmed the satellite had lost power and is unlikely to be recovered.

"This is a setback, not a failure," said Amy Middleton, EDF’s senior vice president, speaking to Reuters. "The progress we've made and the knowledge we've gained wouldn't have been possible without taking this risk."

MethaneSAT was a key part of EDF’s long-running mission to hold accountable the more than 120 countries that committed in 2021 to reducing methane emissions.

It was also intended to support enforcement of pledges made by 50 oil and gas companies at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023 to eliminate methane emissions and routine flaring.

Methane is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, with up to 80 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period

Scientists say capping leaks from oil and gas wells and equipment is one of the fastest ways to start tackling the problem of global warming.

While MethaneSAT was not the only project to publish satellite data on methane emissions, its backers said it provided more detail on emissions sources, and it partnered with Google to create a publicly available global map of emissions.

Engineers investigating

EDF reported the lost satellite to federal agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Space Force on Tuesday, it said.

Building and launching the satellite cost $88 million, according to the EDF.

The organisation had received a $100 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020 and got other major financial support from Arnold Ventures, the Robertson Foundation and the TED Audacious Project and EDF donors.

The project was also partnered with the New Zealand Space Agency.

EDF said it had insurance to cover the loss, and its engineers were investigating what had happened.

The organisation said it would continue to use its resources, including aircraft with methane-detecting spectrometers, to look for methane leaks.

It also said it was too early to say whether it would seek to launch another satellite, but believed MethaneSAT proved that a highly sensitive instrument "could see total methane emissions, even at low levels, over wide areas."

Despite the efforts to increase transparency on emissions, methane "super-emitters" have rarely taken action when alerted that they are leaking methane, the United Nations said in a report last year.

The pressure on them to do so has decreased as the United States under President Donald Trump's second administration has effectively ended a U.S. program to collect greenhouse gas data from major polluters and rescinded Biden-era rules aimed at curbing methane.