Design a satellite mission to help fight climate change

Blue-sky thinking for environmental challenges

The non-profit Environmental Defense Fund has a long history of creating science-based solutions to environmental challenges. They’ve funded a purpose-built satellite – MethaneSat – to enable companies and countries to identify, manage and reduce their methane emissions.

Do some blue-sky thinking and design your own satellite mission to help fight climate change. Your mission might be paper-based – drawing up ideas on what the satellite might measure – for example, monitoring sea-level rise or animal populations impacted by warming oceans or forest fires. Or it can be a meaningful way to bring additional literacy opportunities to the Build a 3D satellite activity.

Collection structure

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This collection is organised into the following sections:

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• Climate change issues
• How satellites operate
• Examples of satellite missions
• Using satellite data

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Use the resources for background information, content vocabulary and inspiration when designing your own mission.

Climate change issues - why design a satellite?

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Climate change is a global issue and its effects are becoming more obvious. In Aotearoa, we see disruptions to:

• our environment and the species of plants and animals that have adapted to live in particular locations
• cultural identity
• infrastructure
• income from primary production and other sources.

The following resources look more closely at these issues.

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How satellites operate

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Satellites are grouped by the jobs they are sent into space to do, also known as their missions. All satellites have common components, but the payload components are specific to the kind of mission data they are designed to collect.

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The Build a satellite interactive simulation explores mission requirements and satellite builds. The activity has helpful background information to make the most of the interactive.

Examples of other climate change-related satellite missions

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• MethaneSAT
• Monitoring species affected by climate change
• Tracking sea and land ice

MethaneSAT is an example of a built-for-purpose satellite mission.

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The satellite is being built in the United States by the Environmental Defense Fund - a non-profit organisation.

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Aotearoa New Zealand has dual roles: mission control and a science component to examine methane emissions from agriculture.

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The following resources provide information about the MethaneSAT mission.

Using satellite data

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Satellite data is simply a series of numbers or images until it is interpreted and presented in a manner that makes sense to those who want to use it.

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The following resources explore data presented as images, graphs and infographics.

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They are an excellent way to support and practise the science capabilities ‘Gather and interpret data’ and ‘Interpret representations’.

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