Carbon Mapper Coalition’s First Methane-Sensing Satellite to Launch August 16th

MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 15, 2024

Contact:
Kelly Vaughn | Carbon Mapper | kelly@carbonmapper.org | 970-401-0001

Carbon Mapper Coalition’s First Methane-Sensing Satellite to Launch August 16th

WHAT: The Carbon Mapper Coalition’s first satellite — called Tanager-1 built by Planet Labs PBC with technology from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) — will launch on SpaceX’s Transporter-11 mission on Friday, August 16, 2024 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. 

WHEN: SpaceX’s launch window will open at 11:19 a.m. PST 

WHERE: The launch broadcast can be viewed at www.spacex.com and will begin approximately 15-minutes before the launch window.

WHY: Methane is a super-potent greenhouse gas and must be addressed quickly to slow global temperature rise. Tanager is joining a growing ecosystem of satellites in orbit to track emissions at different scales and will fill a unique observational gap. Tanager is specifically designed to detect, pinpoint, and quantify methane and CO₂ super-emitters from space. These are emissions events that often contribute disproportionately to regional emissions and therefore represent an outsized climate risk and opportunity for mitigation. By precisely attributing those emissions and tracking them over time, Carbon Mapper will be able to scale up its publicly-available data — currently available on its public online portal — at a level of granularity that fills gaps in society’s current understanding of human-caused emissions and support direct mitigation action. With this powerful tool, the organization is working with a coalition of partners to advance data transparency and accessibility, prompt mitigation action, improve accountability, prioritize solutions and investments, and help us reduce emissions quickly to meet bold climate goals.

LEARN MORE: Download Carbon Mapper’s media kit here. 

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About Carbon Mapper
Carbon Mapper is a nonprofit based in Pasadena, CA with the mission to drive greenhouse gas emissions reductions by making methane and carbon dioxide data accessible and actionable. Carbon Mapper is focused on filling gaps in the emerging ecosystem of methane and CO₂ monitoring systems by delivering data at facility scale that is precise, timely, and accessible to empower science-based decision making and action. The organization leads a public-private partnership including Planet Labs, PBC and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory among others focused on developing and deploying a constellation of satellites capable of detecting, quantifying, and verifying methane emissions worldwide. Data from these satellites will offer the next major step in scaling up the thousands of methane plumes and CO₂ plumes already publicly available on the Carbon Mapper data portal. Learn more at carbonmapper.org, view our data at data.carbonmapper.org, and follow us on Twitter @carbonmapper