World’s first wooden satellite built in Japan launched to space
The world’s first wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, was launched into space on November 5th in an attempt to use timber to explore the Moon and Mars, Reuters reports
LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and logging company Sumitomo Forestry, will be delivered to the International Space Station on a SpaceX spacecraft and later released into orbit about 400km (250miles) above Earth.
Named after the Latin word for ‘wood’, the palm-sized satellite is designed to demonstrate the cosmic potential of renewable material in the process of human exploration of life in space, the news agency says.
With a 50-year plan of planting trees and building timber houses on the Moon and Mars, astronaut Takao Doi’s team decided to develop a NASA-certified wooden satellite to prove wood is a space-grade material.
