Quake swarm near Mt Ruapehu
AFP / Stephane Godin / Biosphoto
Earth Sciences New Zealand say a swarm of nearly 100 small - relatively deep - earthquakes near Mount Ruapehu have not altered the volcano's alert level.
The earthquakes were observed over two days last week and were mostly centred about 10kms east of Te Wai ā-moe (Ruapehu Crater Lake).
The research organisation said Ruapehu's Volcanic Alert Level remained at 1 - indicating minor volcanic unrest - which could bring about steam and gas discharge, landslides and hydrothermal activity.
They say the quakes' 25km depth suggests they were caused by repeated movement on a fault.
Observations of the lake last month showed sulphur slicks and overflowing consistent with hot fluids flowing into the lake, but its temperature had remained stable at about 12C.
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RNZ News
5 hours ago
- RNZ News
Space Minister Judith Collins goes to ground over alleged government failures managing NZ's first space mission
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MBIE offered no further explanation . That prompted astronomer Michele Bannister of the University of Canterbury to call for future taxpayer funding for space missions to be subject to competition, with clear and transparent milestones. In May, in response to specific questions from RNZ, MethaneSAT acknowledged the spacecraft had been regularly having to be restarted from safe mode using a time-consuming process. It said handover to University of Auckland was on track for no later than June. The spacecraft lost contact with the ground on June 20. University of Canterbury planetary astronomer, Dr Michele Bannister. Photo: University of Canterbury Easther told MBIE that the hand-back to Blue Canyon made MethaneSAT's earlier statements to RNZ difficult to trust. He said there was concern in the space community that "there has never been an extended period in which the satellite had "no issues"". He also said there was "deep concern in the space research community that the level of openness about the status of the mission ... falls far short of any reasonable expectations for a mission that has received substantial public money". The letters added that this was a comparatively small satellite and not particularly complex by space mission standards, so the fact that it had taken 18 months to commission was unusual and pointed to likely future problems. Easther said MBIE it should not have allowed MethaneSAT to tell RNZ and the public "that the spacecraft was essentially working normally". MBIE responded to him that MethaneSAT was unlike any prior New Zealand science investment and brought obligations of confidentiality and commercial sensitivity "not found in other programmes". On the question of whether MethaneSAT had given accurate statements to RNZ, it said simply that: "MethaneSAT LLC has overall responsible for the status of the mission and related media queries". Mahima Seth and Vernon Lewis watch the launch of the MethaneSAT satellite at Mission Control, University of Auckland. Photo: Alexia Russell/The Detail MBIE has responded to criticism of its handling of New Zealand's investment, including the alleged failure to properly disclose problems or "look under the hood" before launch. That last criticism was from Associate Professor in physics Dr Nick Rattenbury, who wrote in a post-mortem of the mission that "New Zealand has more talent and good research ideas than funding to support them" and that "one could reasonably ask to what extent experts were consulted during the decision-making process to invest in the satellite mission, and who was applying due diligence on behalf of New Zealand taxpayers". The deputy head of the Space Agency said MBIE had been actively involved and "well across the challenges the mission has faced". Andrew Johnson said the spacecraft provider "was selected by the Environmental Defense Fund / MethaneSAT LLC before MBIE joined the mission". "The teams at MethaneSAT and Environmental Defense Fund worked with some of the most seasoned professionals in the commercial and government aerospace sectors. We had no reason to doubt their judgement," he said. As for informing taxpayers about the problems, he said the agency had been limited on what it could say due to "obligations of confidence and commercial confidentiality". "We anticipated reflecting on lessons learned from our first active space mission involvement ... and we'll be gathering those lessons in the coming months," said Johnson. Associate Professor in physics Dr Nick Rattenbury. Photo: RNZ / Claire Concannon MethaneSAT pointed out that it did acknowledge delays in commissioning the thrusters in October, when RNZ asked about apparent delays to the flow of methane readings. In October it told RNZ "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." It is not clear whether the earlier problems were linked to the spacecraft's demise, which is still being investigated . MethaneSAT strongly denied giving RNZ incomplete information. "MethaneSAT has been truthful and open in disclosing the operational issues experienced by the spacecraft early in the MethaneSAT mission," said spokesperson Jon Coifman. "Every spacecraft discovers things which work differently in space than planned, requiring updates to procedures, processes, and software. MethaneSAT was no different," he said. MethaneSAT Global Media Unit associate vice president Jon Coifman. Photo: Supplied / MethaneSAT Coifman also shared new details about the safe mode and thruster issues. "MethaneSAT did have a number of safe mode entries early in the mission," he said. "This was due to two factors. "The onboard fault detection and management software was set with very conservative limits at launch. This is standard operating procedure. After time in orbit and experience gained from operations, those limits were relaxed to reduce the number of "false positives" that trigger safe mode. Those updates were implemented over the second half of 2024," he said. The second factor was that a particularly active solar cycle also triggered "safe modes", he said. "When this happens, the onboard fault detection software places the spacecraft into safe mode for the ground operators to assess and reset the required electronics. These ... events continued throughout the life of MethaneSAT as the high solar activity continued. MethaneSAT was not designed with the costly radiation-hardened components found, for example, on military spacecraft," said Coifman. "Regardless of the cause, safe mode requires the ground operations team to perform time-consuming recovery steps," he said. "This too was intentional at the start of the mission (again as it is with every satellite) to ensure a human reviewed each event and confirmed there was nothing more serious or new which required further study. "One objective in handing the satellite to Blue Canyon was to automate much of this recovery to reduce the amount of time required." The MethaneSAT device delivered by a SpaceX rocket on March 5, 2024 Photo: ©2024 Ball Aerospace Coifman also provided new details on challenges faced using the thrusters. "The thrusters on MethaneSAT are relatively new technology. As such, they are more labor [sic] intensive to operate, and have [been] a learning curve for the mission operations team who may be more familiar with other types of thrusters," he said. RNZ has previously revealed there were urgent discussions between MethaneSAT, MBIE and Rocket Lab about updates to staffing levels required to operate the spacecraft, during the time Rocket Lab was on the console. The university also required $3 million more than planned to keep staff employed during delays, taking the cost to New Zealand from $29m to $32m. Coifman added, "The thrusters were operational before and after the handover to Blue Canyon. As with the safe mode recovery, a primary objective for Blue Canyon was to provide more automation in thruster operations to reduce the workload on the mission operators." He said MethaneSAT was fully tested before launch according to best-practices and protocols established by NASA and the commercial spaceflight industry. "There is no reason to believe that additional testing would have addressed the typical operational issues experienced by MethaneSAT on orbit," he said. MethaneSAT was set to target areas all over the globe to analyse, concentrating on oil and gas pipelines. Photo: MethaneSAT RNZ asked Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at a media appearance last week whether there would be a review of New Zealand's investment, to avoid a repeat of any mistakes. "To be clear, this was a decision by the previous Labour government not my government. That's an issue now for MBIE to respond to," he said. Asked if he had spoken to Collins, he said: "I haven't but MBIE is the right place for that to be discussed." RNZ followed up with Luxon's office and clarified that criticism from the local space industry covered the failure to monitor and inform the public about the delays, which happened under the current government. Although the decision to invest was made under Labour, the satellite's launch and time in orbit happened under the current coalition. Luxon's office referred questions to Collins, who, for the second time in as many months, refused to comment. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is blaming the previous Labour-led government. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi Easther said Collins should be asking questions, given she had previously answered to Parliament about delays. In March, Collins answered a series of Parliamentary questions from the Green Party about whether she was aware of any delays in the mission. She referred to delays to the launch date, but did not refer to any issues or delays relating to the satellite's operation once it was in orbit. She said the mission had been returning "high quality data since launch". Collins was also asked why there had been delays handing control to the University of Auckland. She said control had been temporarily transferred to Blue Canyon Technologies to enable the manufacturer to address "challenges which are affecting the satellite's operation" without offering detail. Asked about suggestions of staffing issues, Collins said: "I am aware that MBIE officials are engaging with MethaneSAT partners on New Zealand's support for the mission. Staffing requirements are part of these routine conversations." The extra $3 million payment from MBIE to the university emerged later. Easther said the Minister's answers were incomplete. "When these answers were written it was a full year since MethaneSAT was launched and in that time it published just a few percent of the data we would have expected if it was working as planned," he said. "On top of this, they had just announced the unplanned return of control to Blue Canyon for trouble-shooting - it was clear to everyone watching that there were major delays and hardware issues but you can't learn that from the Minister's answers. "Likewise, nobody has ever doubted that the detector was working - it is the "bread and butter" parts of the spacecraft that failed." Ops engineers Mahima Seth and Vernon Lewis at the University of Auckland's mission control centre. Photo: University of Auckland RNZ asked Mahima Fisher, the leader of the Auckland University's mission control team, what would happen to the team and its facilities now that it will not drive MethaneSAT. She said she had been given a chance to learn from commanding and controlling the satellite during preparations for handover, but was "was very disappointed that I could not be a bigger part of the mission". Fisher said the mission control centre would "continue to exist as a physical space to operate future missions. However, the discussions about the future of the operations team are ongoing". She said students had got to carry out mission planning for MethaneSAT, "which was a unique, powerful and inspiring experience" ... and that MethaneSAT did collect data over the last few months. "I hope we take the time to reflect honestly on this mission, whatever that looks like," said Fisher. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
15 hours ago
- RNZ News
Quake swarm near Mt Ruapehu
Photo: AFP / Stephane Godin / Biosphoto Earth Sciences New Zealand say a swarm of nearly 100 small - relatively deep - earthquakes near Mount Ruapehu have not altered the volcano's alert level. The earthquakes were observed over two days last week and were mostly centred about 10kms east of Te Wai ā-moe (Ruapehu Crater Lake). The research organisation said Ruapehu's Volcanic Alert Level remained at 1 - indicating minor volcanic unrest - which could bring about steam and gas discharge, landslides and hydrothermal activity. They say the quakes' 25km depth suggests they were caused by repeated movement on a fault. Observations of the lake last month showed sulphur slicks and overflowing consistent with hot fluids flowing into the lake, but its temperature had remained stable at about 12C. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
