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The environmentally friendly LignaSat probe – set to orbit this summer – has been created to combat harmful aluminium particles
Japanese scientists have created one of the world’s most unusual spacecraft – a tiny satellite that is made of timber.
The LignoSat probe has been built of magnolia wood, which, in experiments carried out on the International Space Station (ISS), was found to be particularly stable and resistant to cracking. Now plans are being finalised for it to be launched on a US rocket this summer.
The timber satellite has been built by researchers at Kyoto University and the logging company Sumitomo Forestry in order to test the idea of using biodegradable materials such as wood to see if they can act as environmentally friendly alternatives to the metals from which all satellites are currently constructed.
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God I can just see the team of little old Craftsmen widdling away at it for months forming all the toolless joints with sub-millimeter accuracy
People forget for a long time japan built houses without nails or machinery.
Still do.
I would have thought that space debris is deadly no matter if it’s made of wood or metal. If something comes at you at a few kilometers a second, it doesn’t really matter what material it is.
The goal isn’t preventing the whole “lots of tiny pieces moving around could collide with you” issue.
The article mentions that aluminium fragments from space debris, upon reentry, end up damaging the ozone layer. The wooden ones do not.
LignaSat.
LigmaWhat?
First thought as well 😂
Lignocellulose
Outer Wilds Ventures approves of this announcement.
Oh, so steampunk evolves in outer space… That kinda makes more sense
If we can choose the materials of our space transport then I want gingerbread and marshmallows.
Wood is not biodegradable in space. What are they on about? A wooden satellite would not be environmentally friendly debris. It would just be wooden debris
Satellites all eventually come back down though. I think they’re hoping for satellites that when they come down and burn up, less expensive and wasteful materials are lost.
I’m kind of baffled you wouldn’t read the Article and instead jump to conclusions and assume that some of the smartest people on the Planet would overlook such a huge flaw.
Just like 90% of politics, all posturing with no substance but people are stupid enough to on average buy it.
doesn’t read the article, jumps to conclusions, thinks some of the smartest people in the world would make such mistakes. congrats, sir.
This doesn’t seem to be space junk type pollution which is what space pollution is usually talking about. I guess this would be too minimize upper atmosphere metallic particles over the ocean? I haven’t heard of that being an issue, but maybe if there were many times more satellites than there are today it would become an issue?
Space termites next?
I wonder if this is good for cleanup. If we invent a method to clean space of aluminium but then have a organic component floating around too. Say a magnet, laser, sonic or whatever but it reacts differently to wood than to aluminum. Could make things more difficult as usually space has no trees and only rocks.
Mmmm space wood.
