World’s first wooden satellite, developed in Japan, heads to space

KYOTO, Nov 5 (Reuters) – 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.

“With timber, a material we can produce by ourselves, we will be able to build houses, live and work in space forever,” said Takao Doi, an astronaut who has flown on the Space Shuttle and studies human space activities at Kyoto University.

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.

“Early 1900s airplanes were made of wood,” said Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata. “A wooden satellite should be feasible, too.”

Wood is more durable in space than on Earth because there’s no water or oxygen that would rot or inflame it, Murata added.

A wooden satellite also minimises the environmental impact at the end of its life, the researchers say.

“Metal satellites might be banned in the future,” Doi said. “If we can prove our first wooden satellite works, we want to pitch it to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”

INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION

The researchers found that honoki, a kind of magnolia tree native in Japan and traditionally used for sword sheaths, is most suited for spacecraft, after a 10-month experiment aboard the International Space Station.

LignoSat is made of honoki, using a traditional Japanese crafts technique without screws or glue.

“It may seem outdated, but wood is actually cutting-edge technology as civilisation heads to the moon and Mars,” he said. “Expansion to space could invigorate the timber industry.”

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Kantaro writes about everything from Japan’s economic indicators to North Korea’s missiles to global regulation on AI companies. His previous stories have been published in the Associated Press, Bloomberg, the Japan Times and Rest of World. A Tokyo native, Kantaro graduated from DePauw University in the United States and was the recipient of the Overseas Press Club Foundation 2020 Scholar Award.