LignoSat is a palm-sized wooden satellite developed by Kyoto University and homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry and launched by SpaceX on November 5th, 2024. It is made out of honoki, a kind of magnolia tree native to Japan and traditionally used for sword sheaths, after a 10-month experiment aboard the International Space Station proved that it is the most suited for spacecraft and was constructed using a traditional Japanese crafting technique that doesn’t use screws or glue.
LingoSat is tasked with demonstrating the feasibility of wood as a space material, including testing wood’s ability to…
- …endure the temperature fluctuations of space, which are -100C to 100C every 45 minutes as it orbits from darkness to sunlight
- …reduce the impact of space radiation on semiconductors
Wood is more durable in space than on Earth due to the fact that there is no water or oxygen that could rot it or inflame it. Wood would also comes with several benefits:
- Wood is a renewable resource
- Wood can burn up on re-entry with less pollution than metal satellites, which create aluminium oxide particles during re-entry