MethaneSAT, a subsidiary of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) non-profit organization, has launched a satellite, said to be the first developed by an environmental non-profit, to glean insight into methane emissions other tools cannot detect, in a bid to pave the way for heightened accountability and faster reductions, focusing first on oil and gas operators as the largest industrial source of the methane menace.

MethaneSAT, which is described as a satellite designed to help protect the Earth’s climate by accelerating reductions of methane, lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon9 rocket on March 4 to see and quantify total emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) pollutant over wide areas that other satellites do not cover and identify large emitters in places that have been overlooked.