Metana tracking satellite supported by billionaires Jeff Bezos is lost in space, according to her operators.
$ 88 million (£ 64 million) Methanesat, which was launched in March 2024. year, the methane emissions in the regions that produce oil and gas when the signal was lost 20. June.
Environmental Protection Fund (EDF), American non-profit that managed satellite, said lost power and “probably could not be recovered.” His last known location was via Norway.
The organization has developed and launched a metanesate with $ 100 million grants by assigning the EARTH Fund of Bezos – the philanthropic initiative set by the Founder of Amazon.
Despite the loss, the EDF said in the statement that the mission produced a number of key findings on the emission of methane.
“The mission was an extraordinary success in the scientific and technological achievement and for its permanent impact on the industry and regulators around the world” statement Read.
“Thanks to Metanesat, we have gained critical insight into the distribution and scope of methane that is released from the field for oil and gas production.
“We also developed an unseen ability to interpret measurements from the space and translate them in the amount of smoked methane. This capacity will be worth other missions.”
It is estimated that the emission is methane by approximately one-third of the temperature induced by human caused on a global scale.
Equipped with advanced spectrometers, Metanesat could detect the methane level, even at low-levels, over a wide area – which makes it one of the most advanced methane tracking Satellites In the world.
The satellite performed several findings that significantly strengthened the understanding of methane emissions around the world, watching the levels that were 10 times higher than reported in some areas.
“Metanesat gave extraordinary information,” Steven Hamburg project wrote Post to Linkedin in May.
“Methanesat is in the new era of transparency and problem solving … The mission is ambitious, and space missions are challenging. But the climate can’t wait, and we can’t even.”
EDF has yet to be switched off the possibility of another satellite launch for the metanesate operation.