Japan's wooden cube-shaped satellite rockets to space

Wooden datacenters? Japan can build spacecraft out of the stuff

Japan's wooden satellite has been launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a mission to prove that wood can be a viable material for use in space.

LignoSat is a 10 cm cubesat made mainly of wood and solar panels and a smattering of electronics to record how the satellite holds up during its six months in orbit. Data collected will include temperature, the expansion and contraction of the wood as the spacecraft orbits, geomagnetism, and hardware performance onboard. One hope is that the use of wood will reduce the impact of space radiation on electronics.

The satellite was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX cargo flight on November 5. Following its arrival at the ISS, it will be deployed from the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), aka Kibō, a month later.

One of the brains behind the mission, Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, also flew on the STS-123 mission that delivered the JEM in 2008. Doi had previously flown on Columbia as part of the STS-87 mission in 1997 and conducted the first EVA by a Japanese 'naut. STS-123, aboard Endeavour, was Doi's final spaceflight.

Aside from the obvious benefit of being more environmentally friendly when it burns up upon re-entry into the atmosphere – although not all of the components of LignoSat are quite so kind to the environment; it does, after all, carry a complement of electronics – wooden satellites can use cheaper materials than the alternative and, it is argued, require less electromagnetic shielding, therefore allowing for a smaller design.

LignoSat is a proof of concept, and the lessons learned will feed into the design of LignoSat 2. It's a joint effort by Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry. The wood used in its construction is Honoki, a type of Japanese magnolia tree. A ten-month experiment aboard the ISS, where wood samples were mounted on the exposed facility of the JEM in 2022, showed virtually no deterioration in the material, aside from a slight fading in color.

As well as Doi, the team behind LignoSat includes Kenji Kariya, a manager at Sumitomo Forestry Tsukuba Research Institute, and Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata.

While the satellite is certainly innovative, the idea of using wood in space has been around for decades, as humorously documented by The Onion. ®