Kyoto, Japan
Reuters
—
The world’s first wooden satellite, constructed by Japanese researchers, was launched into space on Tuesday, in an early check of utilizing timber in lunar and Mars exploration.
LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry, might be flown to the International Space Station on a SpaceX mission, and later launched into orbit about 400 kilometers (250 miles) above the Earth.
Named after the Latin phrase for “wood,” the palm-sized LignoSat is tasked to exhibit the cosmic potential of the renewable materials as people discover residing in space.
“With timber, a material we can produce by ourselves, we will be able to build houses, live and work in space forever,” mentioned Takao Doi, an astronaut who has flown on the Space Shuttle and research human space actions at Kyoto University.
With a 50-year plan of planting timber and constructing timber homes on the moon and Mars, Doi’s group determined to develop a NASA-certified wooden satellite tv for pc to show wooden is a space-grade materials.
“Early 1900s airplanes were made of wood,” mentioned Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata. “A wooden satellite should be feasible, too.”
Wood is extra sturdy in space than on Earth as a result of there’s no water or oxygen that may rot or inflame it, Murata added.
A wooden satellite tv for pc additionally minimizes the environmental affect on the finish of its life, the researchers say.
Decommissioned satellites should re-enter the environment to keep away from turning into space particles. Conventional steel satellites create aluminum oxide particles throughout re-entry, however wooden ones would simply fritter away with much less air pollution, Doi mentioned.
“Metal satellites might be banned in the future,” Doi mentioned. “If we can prove our first wooden satellite works, we want to pitch it to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”
The researchers discovered that honoki, a form of magnolia tree native in Japan and historically used for sword sheaths, is most suited to spacecraft, after a 10-month experiment aboard the International Space Station.
LignoSat is manufactured from honoki, utilizing a standard Japanese crafts method with out screws or glue.
Once deployed, LignoSat will keep in the orbit for six months, with the digital parts onboard measuring how wooden endures the acute atmosphere of space, the place temperatures fluctuate from -100 to 100 levels Celsius (-148 to 212 levels Fahrenheit) each 45 minutes because it orbits from darkness to daylight.
LignoSat can even gauge wooden’s means to scale back the affect of space radiation on semiconductors, making it helpful for purposes equivalent to information middle building, mentioned Kenji Kariya, a supervisor at Sumitomo Forestry Tsukuba Research Institute.
“It may seem outdated, but wood is actually cutting-edge technology as civilisation heads to the moon and Mars,” he mentioned. “Expansion to space could invigorate the timber industry.”