AIRMO takes aim at methane leaks from space
Tech.eu Cate Lawrence
AIRMO wants to spot methane leaks from satellites, planes, and drones. The bet: catch big losses faster and cheaper than crews walking pipelines.
Based on reporting by Tech.eu, Cate Lawrence — read the original for the full story.
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Methane is a brutal kind of waste. The International Energy Agency says about 200 billion cubic metres of natural gas leak, vent, or get flared every year — roughly two-thirds of the EU’s annual gas use. AIRMO, founded in 2022, thinks space tech can help shrink that number.
The company is building a monitoring platform for the energy sector that pulls in data from drones, aircraft, and satellites. The idea is simple enough: find the leak, measure how much is escaping, identify where it’s coming from, and turn that into something operators can actually act on when they need to meet rules or fix costly problems.
Daria Stepanova, AIRMO’s CEO and co-founder, comes from satellite work, launch operations, and commercialization. She has also founded several startups and used to be CTO of German Orbital Systems. AIRMO now says it has 34 people, with backgrounds ranging from space tech to oil and gas. That mix matters, because the company is trying to build something that works in orbit but is useful on the ground.
AIRMO’s hardware stack includes microlidar and a short-wave infrared spectrometer. The first measures atmospheric conditions and helps with aerosols and dust; the second is meant for methane monitoring. Combined, the sensors are meant to give AIRMO better detection and quantification than existing commercial systems, while keeping costs down through a small-satellite approach.
But the company is not waiting for orbit to prove the point. It is already flying the instruments on drones and on aircraft fitted for remote-sensing missions, because putting sensors on commercial planes brings heavy certification work. Those field campaigns also let AIRMO see how customers use the data, which should make the satellite product better when it launches.
That launch is still ahead. AIRMO is working with partners that provide the satellite platform, and it says there is still integration, testing, and survival work to do before space gets involved. The first satellite offering with EnduroSat is aimed for the end of 2027. By then, AIRMO wants to be ready for the market it sees as most valuable: upstream oil and gas, where the biggest methane emissions tend to show up first.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the rare climate-tech pitch that doesn’t rely on moral poetry. Methane leaks are expensive, measurable, and in plain sight if anyone bothers to look. The real test is whether operators pay for monitoring before regulators make them, which is usually how these stories get interesting.
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