New Zealand's involvement in a satellite mission to measure atmospheric methane will be "huge" for New Zealand's space industry, an expert says.
Research Minister Megan Woods yesterday announced the Government would put $26 million towards a MethaneSAT - designed to locate and measure methane pollution from oil and gas facilities around the world.
The launch of the MethaneSAT is scheduled for 2022, with the location of mission control yet to be announced - but it will be in New Zealand.
Speaking this morning to TVNZ 1's Breakfast, University of Auckland's Professor Richard Easther said the involvement in the programme is "huge" for New Zealand.
"It's the start of us being able to develop an independent space programme to answer questions about the environment, or about science, that contribute to the economy - and to actually have ownership of that process," Mr Easther said.
"It's going to give New Zealanders direct experience with the control and operation of the spacecraft, and that's going to give us capacity as a country to do other things in space.
"It will answer questions that New Zealanders care about and it will train New Zealanders to play a role in the space economy."
The satellite's mission will initially be to measure methane emissions from natural gas producers, but the scope could be widened to include agriculture in the future.
"Methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide," Mr Easther said.
"Once carbon dioxide is there is stays there for a long time, but methane, pound for pound, has a bigger impact on the greenhouse effect.
"So if we can find easy ways to mitigate the amount of methane going into the atmosphere, that's a short term win while we search for long term solutions."
Mr Easther said New Zealand is now making a bigger effort to become a space-faring nation, which is a opportunity "to use our growing capacity to do good in the world.
"Once we've done this we'll be in a much better shape to do other things," he said.
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