Skip to main content

Europe to launch renewable wooden satellite made of plywood

WISA Woodsat is a 10x10x10 cm ‘CubeSat’ – a type of nanosatellite built up from standardised boxes – but with surface panels made from plywood. Woodsat’s only non-wooden external parts are corner aluminium rails used for its deployment into space plus a metal selfie stick.
WISA Woodsat is a 10-by-10-by-10-centimeter CubeSat, a type of nanosatellite built up from standardized boxes but with surface panels made from plywood. Woodsat’s only non-wooden external parts are corner aluminum rails used for its deployment into space, plus a metal selfie stick. Arctic Astronautics

A Scandinavian company plans to launch the world’s first wooden satellite to bring attention to the use of renewable materials in space.

We’ve previously reported on plans from Japan for the world’s first wooden satellite, aimed for launch in 2023, but it now looks like Europe will snatch that achievement with plans to launch its wooden satellite before the end of the year.

Recommended Videos

The European design is being put forward by Finnish company Arctic Astronautics, whose founder, Jari Makinen, said he was inspired by his hobby of making model planes. His company flew a wooden satellite aboard a weather balloon in 2017 and decided to upgrade their plans to a fully orbital satellite to be launched by New Zealand company Rocket Lab.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

The satellite, which measures roughly 10cm on each side, is constructed from simple materials and weighs just one kilogram. The team hopes that their design can help move space technology away from fossil-based materials and toward more renewable materials like wood.

“The base material for plywood is birch, and we’re using basically just the same as you’d find in a hardware store or to make furniture,” explained Woodsat chief engineer and Arctic Astronautics co-founder Samuli Nyman.

“The main difference is that ordinary plywood is too humid for space uses, so we place our wood in a thermal vacuum chamber to dry it out. Then we also perform atomic layer deposition, adding a very thin aluminum oxide layer — typically used to encapsulate electronics. This should minimize any unwanted vapors from the wood, known as ‘outgassing’ in the space field, while also protecting against the erosive effects of atomic oxygen. We’ll also be testing other varnishes and lacquers on some sections of the wood.”

The mini-satellite will carry sensors on board, including a pressure sensor and an LED with a photoresistor, which can be used to monitor the satellite’s condition. It will have a selfie stick as well, with a pair of onboard cameras that can take pictures of the satellite. The team hopes that the end result will be beautiful and inspiring as well as functional.

“In the end, Woodsat is simply a beautiful object in terms of traditional Nordic design and simplicity; it should be very interesting to see it in orbit,” said Makinen. “Our hope is it helps inspire people to take [an] increased interest in satellites and the space sector as something that already touches all our lives and is only going to get bigger in [the] future.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Watch the space station send the first wooden satellite into orbit
Japan's LignoSat being deployed from the ISS.

The world’s first wooden satellite has been deployed to Earth orbit from the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS Research X account posted footage of a trio of CubeSats, including Japan’s LignoSat, recently emerging from the orbital outpost into the vacuum of space.

https://x.com/ISS_Research/status/1867711109983039958

Read more
Watch Europe’s Vega-C rocket return to flight after two years
Artist's impression of Copernicus Sentinel-1C in its Vega-C launcher

A European Vega-C rocket will launch tomorrow carrying the Sentinel-1C mission into orbit in the rocket's first return to flight since it failed in 2022. The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching this Earth-monitoring satellite from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and you can watch along as the event is live-streamed.

The launch is scheduled for 4:20 p.m. ET/1:20 p.m. PT on Wednesday, December 4, with coverage beginning at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT. You can watch on ESA's Web TV using the video embedded below:

Read more
This pair of satellites is going to create an artificial solar eclipse
Proba-3 spacecraft aligned above Earth

Early tomorrow morning will see the launch of an unusual European space mission called Proba-3, which will take off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. The launch is scheduled for around 5:30 a.m ET on Wednesday, December 4, and will see a pair of spacecraft launch into orbit to try and execute a highly precise maneuver to create an "artificial solar eclipse."

The launch of the mission will be covered by India's space agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, and will also be available to stream on the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Web TV. You can watch using the link below, with coverage staring just after 5 a.m. ET (3:30 p.m. local time):

Read more