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World’s first wooden satellite, developed in Japan, heads to space
The world’s first wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, was launched into space on Tuesday, in an early test of using timber in lunar and Mars exploration.
LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry, will be flown to the International Space Station on a SpaceX mission, and later released into orbit about 400 kilometers (250 miles) above the Earth. With a 50-year plan of planting trees and building timber houses on the moon and Mars, Doi’s team decided to develop a NASA-certified wooden satellite to prove wood is a space-grade material. LignoSat will also gauge wood’s ability to reduce the impact of space radiation on semiconductors, making it useful for applications such as data center construction, said Kenji Kariya, a manager at Sumitomo Forestry Tsukuba Research Institute.
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