Jeff Bezos-backed $88 million methane monitoring satellite tv for pc is misplaced in area

An $88 million satellite tv for pc backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos that detected oil and fuel trade emissions of the highly effective greenhouse fuel methane has been misplaced in area, the group that operates stated on Tuesday (July 1, 2025).

MethaneSAT had been accumulating emissions information and pictures from drilling websites, pipelines, and processing services all over the world since March, however went astray round 10 days in the past, the Environmental Protection Fund, which led the initiative, stated.

Its final recognized location was over Svalbard in Norway and EDF stated it didn’t count on it to be recovered because it had misplaced energy.

“We’re seeing this as a setback, not a failure,” Amy Middleton, senior vp at EDF, informed Reuters. “We have made a lot progress and a lot has been discovered that if we hadn’t taken this threat, we would not have any of those learnings.”

The launch of MethaneSAT in March 2024 was a milestone in a years-long marketing campaign by EDF to carry accountable the greater than 120 nations that in 2021 pledged to curb their methane emissions.

It additionally sought to assist implement an additional promise from 50 oil and fuel corporations made on the Dubai COP28 local weather summit in December 2023 to remove methane and routine fuel flaring.

Methane is a potent greenhouse fuel, with 80 instances the warming energy of carbon dioxide over a 20-year interval.

Scientists say capping leaks from oil and fuel wells and gear is subsequently one of many quickest methods to begin tackling the issue of worldwide warming.

Whereas MethaneSAT was not the one undertaking to publish satellite tv for pc information on methane emissions, its backers stated it supplied extra element on emissions sources and it partnered with Google to to create a publicly-available world map of emissions.

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EDF reported the misplaced satellite tv for pc to federal businesses together with the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Communications Fee and the U.S. House Power on Tuesday, it stated.

Constructing and launching the satellite tv for pc price $88 million, based on the EDF. The group had obtained a $100 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020 and received different main monetary help from Arnold Ventures, the Robertson Basis and the TED Audacious Challenge and EDF donors. The undertaking was additionally partnered with the New Zealand House Company.

EDF stated it had insurance coverage to cowl the loss and its engineers had been investigating what had occurred.

The group stated it will proceed to make use of its sources, together with plane with methane-detecting spectrometers, to search for methane leaks.

It additionally stated it was too early to say whether or not it will search to launch one other satellite tv for pc however believed MethaneSAT proved {that a} extremely delicate instrument “might see complete methane emissions, even at low ranges, over extensive areas.”

Regardless of the efforts to extend transparency on emissions, methane “super-emitters” have not often taken motion when alerted that they’re leaking methane, the United Nations stated in a report final 12 months.

The strain on them to do has decreased as the USA underneath President Donald Trump’s second administration has successfully ended a U.S. program to gather greenhouse fuel information from main polluters and rescinded Biden-era guidelines geared toward curbing methane.