Methane tracker lost in space

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By Warren Cornwall, Science. 

Excerpt: Less than 15 months into a scheduled 5-year mission, a pioneering satellite built to track rogue emissions of planet-warming methane has been lost. The demise of MethaneSAT was announced today by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the nonprofit behind the $88 million satellite. ...Methane is emitted by natural sources, such as wetlands, but also by leaky oil and gas infrastructure. Stanching those leaks is an efficient way to slow global warming, many researchers argue, and MethaneSAT was developed specifically to identify them. ...Some existing satellites, such as the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5, can map methane on broader scales across hundreds of kilometers. Others can pinpoint large individual polluters such as a refinery. But MethaneSAT, funded with the help of a $100 million grant from Jeff Bezos’s Earth Fund, was unique in its ability to detect smaller emissions across entire oil and gas fields while also zeroing in on hot spots with a resolution of roughly four soccer fields. ...Although the satellite’s lifespan proved short, Wennberg predicts its legacy will be longer. Data from its first year are still being processed, potentially revealing unknown leaks. ...And it heralds a future where more groups launch satellites to monitor greenhouse gas releases. The nonprofit Carbon Mapper, for example, is part of a group that last year launched the first of four planned satellites capable of tracking carbon emissions at a very fine resolution.... 

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