NASA is going to send wooden satellites into space!
October 3, 20242 Mins Read
US space agency NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA are planning to send artificial satellites made of wood into space. Mongolia's wooden satellite is called Lignosat. It is about the size of an average coffee mug. The two organizations have taken the initiative to send it into the Earth's orbit in 2024.
Wooden satellite
Wood does not rot or decay in space. But on entering Earth's atmosphere, it will burn up into fine ash particles. It is a very effective biodegradable material for future space exploration. The utility of wood was successfully tested earlier this year on the International Space Station. As a result, scientists consider the satellite experimentally ready for launch.
A total of three samples of wood were tested on the space station. Although there is no air in space, there is free movement of harmful rays of the sun and cosmic rays. The temperature is very cold there. In a word, extremely hostile environment. Even after keeping the wood for ten months in such an environment, no decay or deformation was observed. The researchers said this in a statement given in May this year.
For wood selection, scientists took Mongolia, cherry and birch as samples. The pieces were placed in an open space module on the International Space Station for testing. All three woods passed the test. But Mongolian wood is less likely to break during production. Hence this wood is selected.
Currently, the amount of space waste is more than 8 thousand 440 metric tons. Different rocket parts and damaged artificial satellites orbit the Earth. These debris in space are called space debris. A large part of this waste is made of aluminum and titanium. The shiny metal makes the night sky over a large area of the world brighter by about 9 percent. Light pollution occurs. Excessive brightness also causes problems with space observation from Earth.
Building spacecraft using metal is expensive. It is harmful to the International Space Station, or manned spacecraft. If for some reason metallic spacecraft parts fall into the earth, it can cause harm to the people of the earth as well. Wooden spacecraft like Lignosat could be the solution to this problem. In theory it is less harmful than current spacejunk.
