World's first wooden satellite, developed in Japan, heads to space
The world’s first wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, was launched into space Tuesday in an early test of using timber in lunar and Mars mission.
KYOTO, Japan — The world’s first wooden satellite, built by Japanese researchers, was launched into space Tuesday in an early test of using timber in lunar and Mars exploration.
LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry, will be flown to the International Space Station on a SpaceX mission and later released into orbit about 250 miles above the Earth.
Named after the Latin word for “wood,” the palm-sized LignoSat is tasked with demonstrating the cosmic potential of renewable material as humans explore living in space.
“With timber, a material we can produce by ourselves, we will be able to build houses, live and work in space forever,” said Takao Doi, an astronaut who has flown on the Space Shuttle and studies human space activities at Kyoto University.
With a 50-year plan of planting trees and building timber houses on the moon and Mars, Doi’s team decided to develop a NASA-certified wooden satellite to prove that wood is a space-grade material.
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