The first satellite part-funded by the New Zealand Government, MethaneSAT, made it to orbit shortly after 11am this morning.

The satellite’s effectiveness in measuring NZ’s already well-catalogued methane emissions from agricuture has been questioned, but
the project’s backers say it will reveal a lot about developing countries’ emissions, benefit people worldwide from highlight much-easier-to-spot oil and gas leaks, and play a key role developing NZ’s space industry.

The satellite was conceived six years ago by a multinational non-profit called the Environmental Defence Fund – which had been using planes, drones, ground measurements and even handheld devices to track planet-warming methane emissions from oil and gas sites across Texas.

The group hatched plans to track methane emissions from the energy industry around the globe, including the likes of natural gas pipeline leaks.

The EDF raised philanthropic funds to develop MethaneSAT, including US$100 million ($171) from the Earth Fund established by Amazon founder and space entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, plus $29.35 million from the NZ Government.

The Kiwi scientists who’ll work on the project, from Niwa and the Auckland University, will use MethSat to track emissions from agriculture around the world. The practicality of monitoring ag emissions from space was a point of controversy in the build-up to the launch (more on which below).

MethSAT was carried to space on a Falcon 9 Rocket, operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, launched from within a complex within the US Air Force’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Part of the mission control was handled by Rocket Lab in Mt Wellington. The Kiwi-American firm designed the satellite’s tracking, positioning and collision avoidance systems and will operate the Mission Operations and Control Center (MOCC) for MethaneSAT in Auckland as part of the NZ Government’s $29.35m commitment to the international programme.

“A spacecraft doesn’t just sit there and do everything itself,” Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said shortly after the launch. “You have to actively manage it; point it to areas of interest and then operate the scientific instruments, pull all the data down then co-ordinate all the requests coming through from scientists around the world.”

The 350kg, washing machine-sized MethaneSAT will sweep the globe using a high-resolution infrared sensor to detect and track methane leaks from oil and gas sites worldwide.

Its spectrometer uses light reflected from the planet’s surface to calculate the amount of methane in the atmosphere.

The data it gathers will be beamed down to Earth and made public, delivering a more complete picture of where methane emissions are coming from and who’s responsible.

Scientists estimate that human-caused methane emissions are responsible for up to 30 per cent of the global warming being experienced today, with agricultural emissions accounting for another 25 per cent.

According to a New York Times report, figuring out where methane emissions are happening, how big they are and who’s responsible has been a challenge. A lot of drill sites are unmanned. Some companies don’t invest enough in leak-detection technology. Or they don’t welcome inspectors taking measurements.

In the build-up to the launch, RNZ reported that, “While leaks from the oil and gas industry make big, clear plumes of methane, accurately measuring the collected burps of spread-out herds of individual cattle is another matter.”

In the end, the business case was shaped more broadly, to include the broader benefits of the project for developing the space sector in NZ, and potential to get a read on agricultural emissions in the developing world, where data has been scarce, the project’s potential to frame NZ as a global environmental leader, and the fact that New Zealanders will benefit from a reduction in methane emissions from close monitoring of the global and gas industry could bring.

Niwa principal scientist, carbon chemistry and modelling, Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, who was at Rocket Lab’s mission control for this morning’s launch, was named in 2020 as the lead scientist on the MethaneSAT programme to train the satellite to measure farm gas.

Mikaloff-Fletcher said it was unlikely the satellite would improve on New Zealand’s ground-up estimates of farm methane, which were good already.

However, it might be trained to give better information about agricultural methane in developing countries, which have poor ground-up estimates of livestock emissions, she said. What excited her was the satellite could sweep large areas, unlike the ground-based towers that were often used to pick up methane levels in the air.

After SpaceX delayed the original launch time, Space Minister Judith Collins was not able to attend (by the eventual take-off, she was grappling with older technology issues as Defence Minister as the Air Force Boeing 757 meant to fly her and PM Christopher Luxon to Melbourne was grounded with technical issues).

The Herald asked Collins, via email, if the Government would get value for its (or, at least, its predecessor’s) $29.35m investment, given it would not necessary add the already detailed picture of NZ’s ag emissions.

“The increasing development of the commercial space sector globally has created opportunities for small countries such New Zealand to participate in space missions in a way that would previously have been out of reach, helping to drive the development of their space sectors,” Collins replied.

“Having the mission control centre here adds a significant piece of infrastructure to our space ecosystem and strengthens our domestic capability to operate complex space missions, setting us up to participate in future opportunities and other missions while the science programme supports New Zealand researchers to be world leaders in using satellite data to measure agricultural emission of greenhouse gases.

“Ultimately, developing New Zealand’s space sector will help to grow and diversify our wider economy.”

“Information is power,” Niwa general manager research strategy Dr Alex Thompson said. “Earth observation data that helps us understand our environment, it’s power for decision makers, power for farmers – whatever stripe that happen to be, whatever opinion they happen to be, whatever they wish to do. “

EDF chief economist Suzi Kerr said, “New Zealanders are going to be affected by climate change, whereever it happens in the world. And this has the ability to have really major impacts on methane from oil and gass production around the world.”

Kerr said better agriculture methane data could be a competitive advantage for NZ and other countries.

Niwa’s Mikaloff-Fletcher said, “We all know in New Zealand that farmers are not people who want to pollute the environment. They’re people who want to feed their communities. And the purpose of agriculture data from MethaneSat is to support people around the world who want to reduce their missions; provide them with data about where those emissions are and how big they are – so people can use to reduce emissions, and to prove that they have reduced it once they’ve done it.”

A verdict on MethaneSat’s effectiveness monitoring smaller ag eissions could be delivered until the satellite was operational.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.