While some may find the idea of a wooden satellite in space unreasonable, researchers hope that this satellite will be more sustainable and cause less pollution to the environment. Satellites are made primarily of aluminum, and when they burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere at the end of their lives, they produce aluminum oxides that can alter the planet’s thermal balance and damage the ozone layer.
The aforementioned effects are more concerned due to the increase in orbital population, especially with the emergence of complexes such as the “Starlink” satellite system, which currently has about 6,500 active satellites.
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Wooden satellites like Lingost, which uses magnolia wood instead of aluminum, could be part of the future solution; Because they release less harmful pollutants into the atmosphere when they fall to the ground. “Metal satellites may be banned in the future,” Takao Doi said in an interview with Reuters. “If we can prove that the wooden satellite works well, we will present it to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”
Lingost is going to test whether wood works as a more sustainable material in space
According to the New York Times, the Japanese project also faced many challenges. Wood’s tendency to shrink and deform irregularly when losing moisture required careful engineering considerations. The final design had to be approved by both the Japan Space Agency and NASA, which were involved in the launch of the satellite.
Lingost will be launched into orbit from the Kibo module of the International Space Station in about a month. If all goes according to plan, it will record and transmit key health data to Earth for the next six months. The researchers will then measure the temperature and strength of the wooden structure and observe how it might change in the vacuum of space and the atomic conditions of oxygen and radiation.
Things may not go well. It is possible that the solar panels of the satellite will fail or the batteries will heat up and freeze. But researchers are not worried about wood, because experiments have shown that wood does not deteriorate in space.
