Green Party says it's time for Judith Collins to reveal what's wrong with government-funded satellite

The Green Party is calling for Space Minister Judith Collins to tell the public what she knows about delays to a government-funded satellite.

But Collins says the government has committed to obligations of confidentiality when it comes to discussing the troubled satellite.

The government pitched in almost $30 million dollars to MethaneSAT but has not answered questions on exactly why the control of the spacecraft has been returned to its makers in Colorado for several months, instead of being handed to the University of Auckland.

Collins said confidentiality obligations covered issues of commercial sensitivity but were also important for the government to be able to "undertake discussions on New Zealand's participation in the mission".

The methane-hunting satellite has been handed back to its makers in Colorado so they can fix unspecified "challenges affecting its operation".

In response to questions from Green Party space spokesperson Teanau Tuiono about what exactly happened, Collins said officials had updated her on the progress of MethaneSAT, but declined to address what was wrong when asked.

Tuiono said the public should be told what had happened.

"With MethaneSAT being the first official government-funded satellite mission, it is concerning the Minister isn't being upfront with what the issues are, and it looks like the minister does know what the problem is," said Tuiono.

"At the bare minimum we should have transparency about the progress of government funding to the tune of $30 million dollars," he said.

"But we don't know what's happening."

Collins' written reply to Tuiono said: "Space missions often experience a range of delays. The government needs to balance sharing information on investment implementation against obligations of confidence concerning operational details and upholding New Zealand's interests in negotiations."

Delayed handover affecting students

University of Auckland staff and students were expected to take over the mission control of the MethaneSAT spacecraft before the end of last year.

The ability to operate the controls came after the New Zealand government pitched in millions to the mission, including supporting local scientists to develop ways to use the satellite to detect cow burps. Its main targets are oil and gas fields.

The learning opportunity for budding scientists partly justified both the government's investment in MethaneSAT itself, and a separate government investment in the university's new Te Pūnaha Ātea Space Institute.

RNZ asked earlier this year why control had not been handed over.

On March 5, MethaneSAT's owners, the Environmental Defense Fund, released a statement via the website of the New Zealand government's space agency.

It said the mission operations control centre had been "temporarily transferred" to Blue Canyon Technologies in Colorado, USA, which built the satellite.

The announcement came after questions dating back to September 2024 from RNZ about apparent delays to the data meant to be published by the mission, and just a few months after MethaneSAT told RNZ there were "no issues with the satellite".

The 5 March statement said MethaneSAT was still committed to ensuring the mission operations control centre was transferred to Auckland's Te Pūnaha Ātea Space Institute.

"It is anticipated that University staff will be on console no later than the end of June 2025," it said.

As for what had prompted the plan change, the statement said, "Both the satellite's spectrometer and the mission's data platform are functioning well. They have been producing high quality data since June 2024."

The statement didn't address the performance of the spacecraft that is carrying the spectrometer around the world.

MethaneSAT's goal is to supply "actionable" data to shut down flows of methane gas from oil and gas basins globally, an important lever in fighting climate change.

Methane is short lived but potent at heating the planet, and it is often vented to the air overseas as a result of oil and gas drilling.

The project published some data in March, showing emissions from fields in the US, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, which it said "demonstrate the valuable role that satellites play in regularly monitoring methane".

But in New Zealand, few answers have been forthcoming from the government about why the mission's data has failed to flow as fully as expected, or why Blue Canyon Technologies took back control of the spacecraft.

New Zealand company Rocket Lab had been operating it, and was meant to hand the mission control directly to the University.

In further written questions lodged by Tuiono in Parliament, Collins was asked whether it was appropriate that the New Zealand public had not been informed of the specific issue with the mission.

Tuiono also asked Collins if she'd been briefed on what the University of Auckland was using its space institute for while awaiting handover of the mission control.

Collins said she hadn't been directly briefed but the University had reported to space agency officials that it had delivered a number of "outputs" including "education, hosting visits, and teaching courses, and engagement with local and international participants in the space industry".

The process of deciding to fund the satellite - and the subsequent lack of updates - has riled some in New Zealand's scientific community.

Professor of physics at the University of Auckland Richard Easther, who is not involved with the university's part of the mission, said it was "hard to square" MethaneSAT's statements to RNZ in October that there were no issues with the satellite, with subsequent news that spacecraft was being handed back to its makers.

The main text of that October email is reproduced below.

"I am deeply concerned about this situation," Easther said.

"It is very hard to square the October email from MethaneSat with the recent announcement that control is being returned to Blue Canyon," he said.

"The October email says that the spacecraft was in "nominal operations" and had "no issues". In particular, the word "nominal" has a specific meaning in the space community - that the system is operating within its design parameters.

"Potentially the spacecraft has experienced a critical failure between October and February. If so that should be disclosed," he said.

"If this hasn't happened it raises serious questions about the accuracy of the October email."

Ops engineers Mahima Seth and Vernon Lewis at the University of Auckland's mission control centre in March, 2024.

The New Zealand space agency has repeatedly said it can't answer questions about the reason for delays to the spacecraft handover or other potential issues, citing commercial sensitivity and confidentiality.

"The refusal to answer reasonable queries starts to look like an effort to conceal an unpleasant truth," said Easther.

"The public and the science community are owed answers about why it has not yet delivered on its goals.

"Commercial sensitivity is not a magic wand. Our agreement with MethaneSat says 'open and honest communication' is a core principle," he said.

"Involvement with MethaneSAT was supposed to be a national 'flagship' for space. Right now it looks to be on the rocks - we should be told whether we hope it can be refloated or if it has actually sunk," he said.

The October 4 email from MethaneSAT said:

"We appreciate your curiosity, and your entirely reasonable query.

"We launched in March and went through commissioning over a few months, as expected.

"The process as a whole has taken longer than we hoped, but there were no notable or particular complications outside the realm of what would be anticipated.

"Again, there is a lot of new technology on this mission, both hardware and software.

"For instance, commissioning our thrusters went slower than planned because they are a new model and the vendor was modifying their checkout procedure for us as we were going along.

"As of now there are no issues with the satellite or its data collection performance.

"We have been collecting images since May and have been in nominal operations since June when commissioning completed and we turned it over to New Zealand to operate.

"The team is looking forward to more releases soon.

"Lastly, a quick reminder that there were never any concrete deadlines promised for data, for precisely the reason that there are simply too many variables on a mission like this.

"At some point there might be a book to be written about every twist, turn and wrinkle we've encountered over the nearly 10 years since MethaneSAT was first conceived. There have been plenty. But this is about as much detail as we have to offer right now.

"Do keep checking in, and I will make sure to reach out with new developments as they occur."

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