New Zealand Space Agency
The New Zealand Space Agency is an agency within the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment charged with "space policy, regulation and business development" relating to space activities in New Zealand.
History
The New Zealand Space Agency was formed in April 2016 under the country's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The aim of the agency is to promote the development of a space industry in New Zealand and to reap its economic benefits, and to regulate the country's growing commercial space industry. This includes space launches by the New Zealand subsidiary of Rocket Lab, an American aerospace company, and creating new regulation in partnership with the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand to fly a suborbital spaceplane from conventional airports.MethaneSAT
In November 2019, the agency signed a partnership with American non-governmental organization Environmental Defense Fund to work on MethaneSAT, an Earth observation satellite that will study human methane emissions in order to better track and combat climate change. As part of the partnership, the agency has contributed for research and the rights to host mission control. The mission marked New Zealand's first government-funded space mission and successfully launched in early 2024.On 19 August 2020, Dr Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, a former carbon cycling expert at NIWA, was named as lead scientist on the mission.
On 2 July 2025, the Space Agency confirmed that the owners of MethaneSAT had lost contact with the satellite on 20 June 2025 and that recovery was unlikely. RNZ reported that the satellite had cost taxpayers a total of NZ$32 million due to an extra $3 million caused by delays and investment in an unused ground Mission Control.