Taxpayer-funded climate satellite MethaneSAT finally reveals what's behind delays

The group behind a taxpayer-funded methane satellite has finally revealed what is behind delays to a crucial milestone.

MethaneSAT got $29 million from the government, with the aim of growing the space industry.

RNZ has been asking about problems with the satellite since September.

The mission's chief scientist has now said more intense solar activity because of a peak in the sun's magnetic cycle has been causing MethaneSAT to go into safe mode.

The satellite has to be carefully restarted every time.

There has also been a problem with one of the satellite's three thrusters, which maintain its altitude and steer the spacecraft.

MethaneSAT says it can operate fully on two thrusters.

The new information helps explain why control of the satellite had to be temporarily handed back to its manufacturers in Colorado instead of going straight from Rocket Lab to the University of Auckland as planned.

Rocket Lab ran the mission control since launch in March 2024.

The university said it would still operate the mission control from a delayed start date of June, and staff had been involved in day-to-day tasks ahead of the full handover.

The ability to learn from operating the satellite was a major rationale for the government's investment, after early hopes that it would reveal new information about New Zealand's methane emissions proved incorrect.

"Teething problems"

The mission's goal is to name and shame oil and gas producers that are allowing planet-heating methane to escape into the atmosphere, making global heating worse.

In a LinkedIn post, the group's chief scientist says "MethaneSAT is ushering in a new era of transparency and problem-solving."

But a top New Zealand astronomer says MethaneSAT itself hasn't been transparent enough.

The non-profit satellite mission told RNZ in October that the spacecraft was performing as expected and there were no "notable or particular complications outside the realm of what would be anticipated".

Just a few months later, after more questions from RNZ, MethaneSAT announced that control of satellite had been transferred back to its maker Blue Canyon Technologies so it could fix "challenges."

"Their goal is to serve as a conscience to the oil and gas industry and their effectiveness at doing that depends very much on their reputation for integrity and transparency," said Auckland University astrophysicist Richard Easther, who isn't involved in the project.

"Our own motivation as a country for getting involved with this was partly that it would be useful for what we call outreach, that it would raise the profile of space technology in New Zealand, and that's undercut if we can't be sure that they'll share bad news as well as good news."

He said MethaneSAT appeared to be potentially better at giving TED talks than building spacecraft or sharing bad news.

RNZ asked MethaneSAT if its response in October had been true.

MethaneSAT said the issues were "teething problems" and nothing beyond what was expected.

"MethaneSAT experienced the sort of teething problems that one would encounter with any new mission using a new platform (bus), but nothing outside the bounds of what was to be expected. The expectation was that developing an efficient, well-honed set of operating procedures takes time," it said.

MethaneSAT had acknowledged in October that the process was taking longer than expected, particularly commissioning the thrusters.

However it did not disclose the issue with the satellite having to be brought out of safe mode until RNZ asked a list of specific questions this month.

It said the sun was at the peak of an eleven-year cycle of magnetic activity, which can disrupt satellite operations.

It explained that the solar activity is sending MethaneSAT into standby mode as a method of self-protection - and it has to be carefully reawakened each time.

MethaneSAT said it was learning how to do this more quickly.

"New era of transparency"

In March, Space Minister Judith Collins was asked about the mission's problems - but told Parliament she couldn't say because of confidentiality.

In February, the government's Space Agency also cited the need for confidentiality when it declined to answer questions about what was wrong.

Questions about delays directed to the Space Agency, the university and NIWA (which is helping train the satellite to measure farming emissions) have always been referred to MethaneSAT.

Easther questioned the level of secrecy given the project is partly New Zealand government-funded.

"It doesn't stack up as a reason for telling us there weren't problems when there were problems," he said.

"And I think the bigger part of the issue is, why did you sign an agreement which meant you couldn't be transparent with the people who were funding you, which in this case is the New Zealand taxpayer.

"It's good to see the update, and it's great to see that they think they understand the problems with the spacecraft and can work around them but it also does seem like a tacit admission that their October statement was inaccurate."

"Amazing" data

The satellite's major funders are private donors including Jeff Bezos' Earth Fund.

Its wide sweep and detailed pictures are designed to reveal where fugitive gases are coming from, over big areas of the globe. It is one of a few methane-hunting satellites in orbit, and promises to help global efforts to slash methane by 30 per cent - efforts the New Zealand government signed up to assist.

When it launched, the mission's goal was to collect and download images from 30 segments of the planet a day, each 200km by 200km, covering 80 percent of the world's oil and gas production each year. However, the full flow of data has been slower than hoped.

MethaneSAT said this week the satellite was returning "amazing" data from its state-of-the-art spectrometers.

It said the flow of images available to researchers on the ground should get faster as the mission moves to greater automation of its data processing.

"You can expect to see much more information flowing moving forward," it said.

"The two powerful imaging spectrometers at the heart of our system are working extremely well, measuring differences in methane concentrations as small as two parts per billion," it said.

The data will be freely available to researchers and the public.

The challenges with MethaneSAT, in its chief scientist's words

MethaneSAT posted details about its challenges on LinkedIn on 16 May, four days after RNZ sent a list of detailed questions.

MethaneSAT's LinkedIn post goes into more detail about the specific issues with the thruster and solar activity.

"MethaneSAT's 'bus' - the platform which carries the spectrometers, providing power, communications and maneuvering - is designed to enter standby mode under certain conditions in order to protect itself from damage. These include instances of increased solar activity," it said.

"As it happens, our sun is at the peak of an eleven-year cycle of magnetic activity, which can significantly disrupt radio and other electronic activities. Much like weather can affect aircraft flight patterns, solar flares and other 'space weather' can disrupt satellite operations," it said.

"Restarting from standby mode takes time to ensure the spacecraft is healthy. We are using lessons learned to reduce the re-start time required, reduce downtime and return data collection faster.

"We encountered issues with one of three thrusters used to maintain our operating altitude and steer clear of hazards - critical in a crowded orbital environment home to more than 10,000 active satellites and countless bits of debris. Fortunately, there is redundancy built into MethaneSAT's propulsion system, and we remain fully operational with two thrusters," it said.

In answers emailed to RNZ three days after the post, MethaneSAT also confirmed that Blue Canyon had deployed a software "patch" sometime after October to address the safe mode issue, which "eliminated the specific events ... that at the time were of concern."

However it did not say the need for re-starting was fixed.

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