MethaneSAT

MethaneSAT [Ball Aerospace]

MethaneSAT was an earth observation mission by MethaneSAT LLC, an affiliate of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), to measure methane pollution from oil and gas facilities worldwide with both broad scope and exacting precision.

The satellite provided global, high-resolution coverage of methane emissions from oil and gas facilities. It could measure surface-level methane emissions from other major sources of human-caused methane emissions, too. The 200-plus kilometer satellite view path was large enough not only to quantify known sources, but also to discover and quantify previously unknown sources.

It was designed to measure regions at intervals under seven days, regularly monitoring roughly 50 major regions accounting for more than 80 percent of global oil and gas production. With its moderately high spatial resolution and very high precision, MethaneSAT had the capacity to detect lower emission sources while being able to attribute the source of those emissions at scales relevant to oil and gas infrastructure.

MethaneSAT's instrument was built by Ball Aerospace, which also acted as the prime contractor. The spacecraft was provided by Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) and was based on their X-SAT Microsat bus. The 350 kg satellite was launched in a shared launch in March 2024 (delayed from 2022) on a Falcon-9 v1.2 (Block 5).

Less than 15 months into a scheduled 5-year mission MethaneSAT has been lost on 20 June 2025, when communication went silent. All attempts to reestablish communications with the satellite failed and the mission is considered lost.