Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Communications Space

Bezos-Backed Methane Tracking Satellite Is Lost In Space (reuters.com) 57

Posted by BeauHD from the emission-impossible dept.
MethaneSAT, an $88 million satellite backed by Jeff Bezos and led by the Environmental Defense Fund to track global methane emissions, has been lost in space after going off course and losing power over Norway. "We're seeing this as a setback, not a failure," Amy Middleton, senior vice president at EDF, told Reuters. "We've made so much progress and so much has been learned that if we hadn't taken this risk, we wouldn't have any of these learnings." Reuters reports: The launch of MethaneSAT in March 2024 was a milestone in a years-long campaign by EDF to hold accountable the more than 120 countries that in 2021 pledged to curb their methane emissions. It also sought to help enforce a further promise from 50 oil and gas companies made at the Dubai COP28 climate summit in December 2023 to eliminate methane and routine gas flaring. [...] 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.

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 organization 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 organization 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."

Bezos-Backed Methane Tracking Satellite Is Lost In Space More | Reply

Bezos-Backed Methane Tracking Satellite Is Lost In Space

Comments Filter:
  • If Trump can't see the climate change science ( because he shut it down ) then that's enough proof to him that the climate isn't fucked.

    Shame on anyone supporting Trump who understands what is happening but is still helping him cause this disaster.
    How do those people sleep at night ?
    It's time to call them out.

  • "we wouldn't have any of these learnings."

    If their engineering is as bad is this woman's grammar then no surprise the craft crashed.

    • In case anyone is wondering, "Learnings is a proscribed plural of learning, meaning "thing learned". It is often used in business speak, but some consider it ungrammatical or a buzzword."

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        Normal people say "lessons" but I guess using that word doesn't differentiate the pointy hairs enough from the plebs.

    • College done learned her English real good!

    • How many satellites have to fall out of the sky before we learn how to keep them from falling out of the sky?

      It seems like "but at least we learned something!" has become a pathetic way to cover up the truth: "we're too dumb, cheap, and lazy to keep this from happening."

      • How many satellites have to fall out of the sky before we learn how to keep them from falling out of the sky?

        Didn't "fall out of the sky." It lost power and stopped communicating, but it's still in orbit, and will be until atmospheric drag eventually brings it down.

        Article was written by somebody who doesn't understand that you don't need power to stay in orbit.

  • For the EU it's not just a promise, they have to (Score:3)

    by Samare ( 2779329 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @04:40AM (#65490634)

    "The new regulation obliges the fossil gas, oil and coal industry in Europe to measure, monitor, report and verify their methane emissions according to the highest monitoring standards, and to take action to reduce them." https://energy.ec.europa.eu/ne... [europa.eu]

    By the way, "When using fossil gas for electricity generation, lifecycle methane emissions must not exceed 3% of delivered volumes, because in climate terms, it would then be better to use coal for electricity generation." https://energy.ec.europa.eu/to... [europa.eu]

  • That is just what they want you to believe (Score:3)

    by boojumbadger ( 949542 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @06:48AM (#65490728)

    It is on its way to Europa to investigate the monolith,

  • Suspicious event (Score:3)

    by BrightCandle ( 636365 ) on Wednesday July 02, 2025 @06:52AM (#65490732)
    This is really suspicious. This satellite had been exposing some serious crimes against the environment and a lot of leaking gas and its sudden disappearance seems suspicious. Its not a common event to loose a satellite once its successfully in orbit and functioning.
    • I'm not exactly sure what they mean by non launch mission failure but this paper: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/cita... [nasa.gov] yields this conclusion, and I wouldn't call 41.3 % a small number - or 35% if you discount launch failures. This one would no doubt be considered a 'partial mission failure' but that's still a respectable 11%. This study observed that between the years of 2000 to 2016, 41.3% of all small satellites launched experienced total or partial mission failure. Of these, 6.1% were launch vehicle fai

      • Yeah. Depends a lot on what you categorize as a "smallsat," but a lot of these are cubesats built by students, and they have a huge failure rate.

    • A major natural gas producer.

      "That'll teach people to stop sniffing our farts."

    • I recall natural gas wells with leaks finding gases to mix with the leak to prevent detection. I can't imagine that is more cost effective than simply fixing a leak

  • Bezos scuttled it after threats from Trump (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There, I said what everyone is thinking.

  • Satellite lost in space... oh well, let's talk about climate change.

    Sarcasm aside, the piece of junk satellite will eventually return back to earth. Or is it? If not something pushed it beyond the gravity well. If that is the case the Starfleet commanders of the future will have to be aware of potential collisions from debris.

  • Having done crystal I can testify that "going off course" is part of life.

  • Perhaps there needs to be a project that periodically flies drones over plants to detect methane use and upload the results to a repository.

  • " It also sought to help enforce a further promise from 50 oil and gas companies made at the Dubai COP28 climate summit in December 2023 to eliminate methane and routine gas flaring."

    Taking a page from the current administration, all methane flaring has now been classified as "Emergency!" gas flaring.

    See? We got rid of all the 'routine' gas flaring. We are so environmental. Where's my Nobel prize?

Slashdot Top Deals

You may call me by my name, Wirth, or by my value, Worth. - Nicklaus Wirth

Close