# Towards Methane Detection Onboard Satellites

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.00626 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00626/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 4 of its 12 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Unlocking the Use of Raw Multispectral Earth Observation Imagery for Onboard Artificial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11891/) (2023)
- [Fast and Accurate Retrieval of Methane Concentration from Imaging Spectrometer Data Using Sparsity Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.02978/) (2020)
- [HyperspectralViTs: General Hyperspectral Models for On-board Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.17248/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Methane Detection On Board Satellites from Unorthorectified Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.04906/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and a major driver of climate change, making its timely detection critical for effective mitigation. Machine learning (ML) deployed onboard satellites can enable rapid detection while reducing downlink costs, supporting faster response systems. Conventional methane detection methods often rely on image processing techniques, such as orthorectification to correct geometric distortions and matched filters to enhance plume signals. We introduce a novel approach that bypasses these preprocessing steps by using textitunorthorectified data (UnorthoDOS). We find that ML models trained on this dataset achieve performance comparable to those trained on orthorectified data. Moreover, we also train models on an orthorectified dataset, showing that they can outperform the matched filter baseline (mag1c). We release model checkpoints and two ML-ready datasets comprising orthorectified and unorthorectified hyperspectral images from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) sensor at https://huggingface.co/datasets/SpaceML/UnorthoDOS , along with code at https://github.com/spaceml-org/plume-hunter.