The BBC reports that a company and a university in Japan are designing a wooden satellite.
Apart from the customization, hipster qualities of such a noble material, what’s the point? One benefit: when the satellite is decommissioned and burned on reentry, it could theoretically release less toxic junk into the atmosphere …
Space debris is becoming an increasing problem as more satellites are launched into the atmosphere.
Wooden satellites would burn out without releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere or raining debris on the ground when they dive back to Earth.
“We are very concerned that all the satellites that reenter Earth’s atmosphere will burn up and create tiny alumina particles that will float in the upper atmosphere for years to come,” said Takao Doi, a professor at Kyoto University and a Japanese. astronaut. the BBC.
“Ultimately, it will affect the Earth’s environment.”
It is certainly true that the space junk problem is exploding; I recently reported a great deal on the privatization of space before The new republic, and I heard from scientists worried about SpaceX’s plans to send tens of thousands of new satellites in the coming years.
Popular mechanics wrote a brief history of the use of wood in spacecraft (several experiments have been done, including as heat shields), and pointed out another benefit:
There may be some advantages to encasing a load in a wooden shell. Nikkei Asia also notes that wood, unlike metal, will not block the electromagnetic waves that satellites use to communicate. If so, the scientists can store the antenna and other instruments in the wooden outer construction.
(That CC-2.0 licensed photo of wood above – not related to building satellites! It’s just … wood! – is from Yuya Tamai’s Flickr stream)