This was the most precise emission measuring instrument we’ve had so far.

A satellite mission aimed at holding major polluters accountable for greenhouse gas emissions has suffered a devastating failure, potentially dealing a blow to global climate transparency efforts — and offering a reason for celebration among some of the world’s biggest emitters.

The $88 million MethaneSAT, launched in March 2024 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, has gone dark in orbit after just over a year of operation. Designed to track human-made methane emissions with unprecedented precision, the satellite had been hailed as a game-changer in the fight against climate change.

For the past two weeks, mission operators at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) — a nonprofit behind the satellite — have been unable to establish communication. In late June, EDF admitted that MethaneSAT has lost power and is now considered “likely not recoverable.”

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The cause of the failure remains unknown, the Fund said in a statement.

An investigation is underway to determine why communications were lost, but hopes of reviving the mission are gone.

Backed by Google and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, MethaneSAT had shown early promise. Its advanced spectrometers were capable of not only detecting methane from space but also identifying the exact facilities responsible for leaks and emissions, with exceptional accuracy — something previous satellites had struggled to achieve.

Methane, though less abundant than carbon dioxide, traps 28 times more heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period and is considered the second-largest contributor to global warming. Yet experts say its impact is likely underreported, due in part to its leaky nature and the fossil fuel industry’s lack of accountability.

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MethaneSAT’s early findings, which were made publicly available, had already implicated oil and gas facilities in North America and Central Asia as emitting far more methane than previously disclosed — potentially exposing regulatory violations and misleading emissions reporting by major energy companies.

The satellite’s abrupt demise comes just as its data was beginning to disrupt the status quo. That’s precisely why some polluters may be breathing a sigh of relief: With MethaneSAT offline, a powerful watchdog has gone silent.

The loss weakens the growing global effort to enforce emissions transparency and puts renewed pressure on other methane-monitoring programs like those run by NASA and the European Space Agency — many of which lack the fine-grained attribution capabilities MethaneSAT was bringing to the table.

It's unclear whether EDF will order a second satellite of the kind to continue with the measurements.