An environmental satellite disappeared in the orbit of the Earth, jeopardizing an ambitious mission to combat global warming. Named Metanesat, the project was largely funded by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), with the support of the billionaire businessman Jeff Bezos, as well as Google and the Government of New Zealand.
Launched in March 2024, Metanesat is designed to identify methane leaks, a gas that warms the planet up to 80 times more than the carbon dioxide that escapes without being perceived of wells, pipes and other fossil fuel facilities.
Satellite will not recover
The initiative received a contribution of $ 100 million through the Bezos Earth Fund organization and cost $ 88 million to build and launch. The satellite was sent to Spacex’s space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and set the first space mission with the support of New Zealand government, also responsible for controlling operations.
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As published in the Official Metanesat profile in the X, since June 20, the satellite no longer responds to the team’s orders. The statement also says that the satellite has lost energy and that “it will probably not recover”.
On Friday, June 20, we lost contact with our methane measurement satellite. Despite considerable efforts, we have not been able to restore contact. This morning we learned that the satellite has lost power and that it is antiipid to be irrecoverable.
The mission of Metansat has been a … pic.twitter.com/0MFPDNJCSI
– Metanesat (@methanesat) July 1, 2025
This loss is a strong blow for the project, which promised to revolutionize methane through mapping, in seconds, areas that would take hours to fly over the planes. In orbit every 95 minutes, you could see oil and gas fields responsible for more than 80% of world production.
Before metanesat, methane measures depended on soil sensors and aircraft. This work revealed that between 2012 and 2018, North -American emissions were 60% higher than the estimated of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The project also has a collaboration with Google, which uses artificial intelligence to identify platforms of wells, tanks and pipes in satellite images, with a logic similar to Google Maps. Even with the disappearance of the team, EDF intends to take advantage of the data collected to pressure the industry to reduce methane emissions.
