On Tuesday, the world’s first wooden satellite, created by Japanese researchers, was launched into space as an early test for using wood in future lunar and Mars missions.
LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and the homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry, will travel to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX rocket. After that, it will be released into orbit about 400 km (250 miles) above the Earth.
The name LignoSat comes from the Latin word for “wood.” This palm-sized satellite aims to show the potential of wood as a renewable resource for human life in space.
“With wood, a material we can produce ourselves, we can build homes and live and work in space forever,” said Takao Doi, an astronaut and researcher at Kyoto University.
Doi and his team have a 50-year plan to plant trees and build wooden houses on the moon and Mars. They created a NASA-certified wooden satellite to demonstrate that wood can be used in space.
“Early airplanes in the 1900s were made of wood,” said Koji Murata, a professor of forest science at Kyoto University. “A wooden satellite should work just as well.”
Murata explained that wood is more durable in space than on Earth because there is no water or oxygen to cause it to rot or burn.
Additionally, using wood as a material reduces environmental impact at the end of its life, according to the researchers.
When satellites are retired, they need to re-enter the atmosphere to prevent becoming space debris. Conventional metal satellites create aluminum oxide particles during this process, while wooden satellites would simply burn up with less pollution, Doi said.
“Metal satellites might face bans in the future,” Doi noted. “If our wooden satellite works, we hope to propose it to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”
The researchers found that honoki, a type of magnolia tree native to Japan and traditionally used for sword sheaths, is the best wood for spacecraft after conducting a 10-month experiment on the International Space Station.
LignoSat is made from honoki wood using a traditional Japanese craft technique that does not involve screws or glue.
Once in orbit, LignoSat will remain there for six months, with its electronic components measuring how wood withstands the extreme conditions of space. Temperatures can swing from -100 to 100 degrees Celsius every 45 minutes as it orbits between sunlight and darkness.
LignoSat will also test wood’s ability to protect against space radiation, which could be useful for building data centers, according to Kenji Kariya, a manager at Sumitomo Forestry Tsukuba Research Institute.
“It may seem old-fashioned, but wood is actually cutting-edge technology as we move towards living on the moon and Mars,” he said. “Expanding into space could also boost the timber industry.”
