MethaneSAT, a satellite built to measure methane emissions from oil and gas production regions around the world, lost contact with its operators on 20 June 2025. The Environmental Defense Fund, which developed the mission through a subsidiary, said the satellite had lost power and was unlikely to be recoverable. Operators made attempts to re-establish communication over the following weeks without success, according to MethaneSAT's project updates. Reuters reported the loss on 1 July.
The satellite was launched in March 2024 on a SpaceX rocket and had been collecting data for about a year. Its backers included philanthropic donors, among them the Bezos Earth Fund, and it was developed in partnership with Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, with support from the New Zealand Space Agency, which ran mission operations.
What MethaneSAT was designed to do
Most satellites that detect methane fall into two categories. Global mappers, such as the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5P, cover the whole planet daily but at coarse resolution, which makes it hard to attribute emissions to specific facilities. Point-source imagers, such as those operated by GHGSat and Carbon Mapper, see small areas at high resolution and can identify individual large leaks, but they do not capture the many smaller, diffuse sources that add up across a basin.
MethaneSAT was designed to sit between the two. It could image wide swaths at high precision, enough to quantify total methane emissions across an entire oil and gas basin, including small and diffuse sources, and to locate large point sources within it. Its data were intended to give regulators, companies and the public an independent measure of total emissions from major producing regions.
Why the data matter
The International Energy Agency's Global Methane Tracker 2025, published in May, estimated that methane emissions from the energy sector remain above 120 million metric tons a year, considerably higher than levels implied by official reporting. The IEA counted more than 25 satellites in orbit that can provide information on methane emissions, and noted that very large leaks detected by satellites rose to a record in 2024.
The gap between measured and reported emissions is central to methane policy. Many national inventories and company reports rely on emission factors, which estimate leaks based on equipment counts rather than direct measurement. Independent measurement from satellites and aircraft has repeatedly found higher emissions in some regions, particularly where flaring and venting are common.
The regulatory context
Methane measurement has become a commercial issue as well as a regulatory one. The European Union's methane regulation, adopted in 2024, will require importers of oil, gas and coal to show that their supplies meet monitoring, reporting and verification standards equivalent to EU rules, with obligations phasing in from 2027. Buyers and sellers of LNG are developing certification schemes to demonstrate low methane intensity, and independent satellite data could help verify those claims.
In the United States, federal policy on methane is changing. Congress struck down the EPA rule implementing the methane waste emissions charge in March, and the administration has said it will reconsider federal methane standards. That shifts more weight onto voluntary measurement and contractual commitments, where independent data can play a role.
What remains in orbit
The loss of MethaneSAT does not leave the world without methane monitoring. Sentinel-5P continues to map global methane concentrations. Commercial operators such as GHGSat run constellations of point-source satellites. Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit coalition, launched its first satellite with Planet Labs in 2024 to detect point sources. Japan's GOSAT satellites and several Chinese instruments also measure greenhouse gases. The UNEP's International Methane Emissions Observatory runs a Methane Alert and Response System that uses satellite data to notify governments and companies of large leaks.
What is missing is a dedicated instrument for basin-wide quantification at MethaneSAT's combination of coverage and precision. Some of that capability may be provided by future missions, including the European Union's planned CO2M satellites, which will measure carbon dioxide and methane.
The cost of measurement
Satellites are only one layer of methane measurement. Operators also use handheld optical gas imaging cameras, continuous monitors at well pads, drones and aircraft. Each method has a different trade-off between cost, coverage and precision. Aircraft surveys can quantify emissions across a basin with high precision but are expensive to repeat frequently. Continuous monitors catch intermittent releases at specific sites but cover only the facilities where they are installed. A satellite that revisits the same basin regularly provides a consistent independent check on the totals reported from the ground, which is why MethaneSAT's design attracted attention from regulators and investors.
Federal rules finalized in 2024 allowed approved third parties to report large emission events detected by remote sensing, which operators would then have to investigate. How that program evolves under the current administration's review of methane standards will affect how much satellite data feeds into US enforcement.
Implications for gas markets
For gas buyers, particularly in Europe and Asia, independent methane data are becoming part of how they assess suppliers. Producers in the United States, the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere are under pressure to show low methane intensity, both to meet EU import rules and to win contracts with buyers who have their own climate targets.
The loss of MethaneSAT reduces the amount of independent, basin-level data available to support or challenge producers' claims. That may increase reliance on company-reported measurements, aircraft surveys and point-source satellites, each of which has limitations.
For producers with genuinely low emissions, independent data can be a commercial advantage, because it supports premium pricing or preferred supplier status. For those with higher emissions, the absence of such data may delay scrutiny, but it does not remove the regulatory requirements that buyers in the EU will face.
What happens next
The Environmental Defense Fund has said it will continue to analyze and publish the data MethaneSAT collected before contact was lost, which cover many of the world's major oil and gas basins. Those data will remain useful as a baseline. EDF has also indicated it is considering options for future measurement, including aircraft campaigns and partnerships with other satellite operators.
What to watch
Key developments include the publication of MethaneSAT's archived data, the European Commission's implementing rules for methane import requirements, and the progress of other methane monitoring missions. The degree to which buyers rely on independent measurement in LNG contracts will be a test of how much the loss matters commercially.