World's 1st 'wooden' satellite planned in Japan for 2023 launch

Very clever.

Sounds like a woody good idea

Very nice!

One question. Do we really need more satellites in space?

We had car beams, panels, and doors made out of wood in the 30's & 40's why not satellite exterior if durable enough.

I wonder if making the satellite from a heavier material like wood requires more fuel to get it into orbit though. I hope they use recycled wood, and not cut down a whole forest for the finest planks.

No doubt it will be hand made in Malvern, Worcestershire, UK.

Wow. Not content with polluting earth of into space to put more crap in space.

The state-run university in western Japan and the Tokyo-based wood products company are set to test the durability of wood in space,

I was thinking about this. If people made shields, galleons, planes and even bicycles from wood, why not? At least when it reenters Earth orbit, it will be reduced to nearly nothing unlike an all metal satellite (might be wrong here though). But I agree with the commenters above though, how many stuff do you need to send up there? Maybe 50 years from now, people will complain about the amount of trash in space the same way we complain about environmental pollution that was unheard of decades ago.

But I agree with the commenters above though, how many stuff do you need to send up there

The Chinese are complaining about their space station experiencing near misses by some of Elon Musk's Starlink satellites.

I hope the wood is sterilized from living microbes and spores before being launched and before re entry which i highly doubt.

Moldy space junk with microbes and bacteria and bits of carbon floating around might not be so clever.

Seems interesting!

Interesting idea. An environmentally sustainable material that will disintegrate more effectively than metal. Wood is a surprisingly (to modern people though not our ancestors) versatile, flexible and adaptable material and if you use the right wood for the job can be very strong and light. Ergo the very sensible decision to trial potential varieties in space.

No need to panic about space junk, cubesats are usually inserted in to low Earth orbits which decay quickly. Nor sterility, it’s not going anywhere to spread anything beyond the ecological environment it originated in and will be sterilised anyway by the temperatures of re-entry.

The CCP’S whine is hypocritical, the space station has been dodging Chinese space junk for decades and they unnecessarily created a vast amount of dangerous debris by blowing up a satellite.

Japan innovating and thinking outside the box. Good job!

This could open up a way forward for all commercial satellites of the future and set Japan up to be an industry leader in the field.

And here I was thinking that the main environmental concern with rocketry was the burning of 30+ tons of rocket fuel and expelling the byproducts into the atmosphere.

I had no idea that several hundred pounds of aluminum was the culprit.

Captain, if hydrogen and oxygen are used the “waste” is just water. Even with the other fuels the amount of material of waste is minuscule compared to the amount generated by every other form of transport not to mention how much you and every other person generates in their life.

The benefits space has brought vastly ought weigh the down sides, after all how would you Zoom meetings without satellites so saving all that pollution from not going in to the office!

This is an interesting development, but it is our understanding that Europe and New Zealand have already built wooden satellites in years passed, so it is not accurate to say Japan is building the world's first.

Europe: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007106908/plywood-satellite-wood-woodsat-european-space-agency-esa

New Zealand: https://earthsky.org/space/first-wooden-satellite-wisa-woodsat/