The BBC reports that a company and a university in Japan are designing a satellite made of wood.
In addition to the tailored, hipster qualities of such a noble material, what’s the use? One benefit: when the satellite is deactivated and burns on re-entry, it could theoretically release less toxic waste into the atmosphere …
Space debris is becoming an increasing problem as more satellites are launched into the atmosphere.
Wooden satellites would burn without releasing harmful substances into the atmosphere or raining debris on the ground when they returned to Earth.
“We are very concerned that all the satellites that re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere burn and create tiny particles of alumina that will float in the upper atmosphere for many years,” said Takao Doi, a professor at Kyoto University and a Japanese astronaut at the BBC. .
“Eventually, it will affect the Earth’s environment.”
It is certainly true that the problem of space debris is exploding; I recently reported a great article on the privatization of outer space for The new republic, and I received an earful from scientists concerned 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 spaceships (there were several experiments, including heat shields) and pointed out another benefit:
There may be some benefits to enclosing a payload in a wooden shell. Nikkei Asia also notes that, unlike metal, wood does not block the electromagnetic waves that satellites use to communicate. In that case, scientists can hide the antenna and other instrumentation parts inside the wooden outer structure.
(That wooden photo with CC-2.0 license above – unrelated to satellite construction! It’s just … wood! – courtesy of Yuya Tamai’s Flickr stream)