Japan's wooden cube-shaped satellite rockets to space
- Reference: 1730820789
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/11/05/japan_wooden_satellite/
- Source link:
[1]
An artist's impression of LignoSat (click to enlarge) Credit: KyotoU/Gakuji Tobiyama
[2]LignoSat is a 10 cm cubesat made mainly of wood and solar panels and a smattering of electronics to record how the satellite holds up during its six months in orbit. Data collected will include temperature, the expansion and contraction of the wood as the spacecraft orbits, geomagnetism, and hardware performance onboard. One hope is that the use of wood will reduce the impact of space radiation on electronics.
The satellite was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX cargo flight on November 5. Following its arrival at the ISS, it will be deployed from the [3]Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) , aka Kibō, a month later.
One of the brains behind the mission, Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, also flew on the STS-123 mission that delivered the JEM in 2008. Doi had previously flown on Columbia as part of the STS-87 mission in 1997 and conducted the first EVA by a Japanese 'naut. STS-123, aboard Endeavour, was Doi's final spaceflight.
Aside from the obvious benefit of being more environmentally friendly when it burns up upon re-entry into the atmosphere – although not all of the components of LignoSat are quite so kind to the environment; it does, after all, carry a complement of electronics – wooden satellites can use cheaper materials than the alternative and, it is argued, require less electromagnetic shielding, therefore allowing for a smaller design.
[4]You wood not believe what a Japanese logging company and university want to use to build a small satellite
[5]China refreshes crew of its 'Celestial Palace' space station
[6]FCC chair: Mobile dead spots will end when space-based and ground comms merge
[7]Europa Clipper heads to Jupiter: Can its icy moon support life?
LignoSat is a proof of concept, and the lessons learned will feed into the design of LignoSat 2. It's a joint effort by Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry. The wood used in its construction is Honoki, a type of Japanese magnolia tree. A [8]ten-month experiment aboard the ISS, where wood samples were mounted on the exposed facility of the JEM in 2022, showed virtually no deterioration in the material, aside from a slight fading in color.
As well as Doi, the team behind LignoSat includes Kenji Kariya, a manager at Sumitomo Forestry Tsukuba Research Institute, and Kyoto University forest science professor Koji Murata.
[9]
While the satellite is certainly innovative, the idea of using wood in space has been around for decades, as humorously documented by [10]The Onion . ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/11/05/ligno_art_impress.jpg
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/04/wooden_satellite_japan/
[3] https://www.nasa.gov/international-space-station/japanese-experiment-module-kibo/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/04/wooden_satellite_japan/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/30/china_tiangong_crew_refresh/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/29/fcc_chair_gives_a_taste/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/19/europa_clipper_juniper_support_life/
[8] https://jwoodscience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s10086-024-02165-x
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZypPOIV9VxBt4bCF0Gq6MQAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[10] https://theonion.com/russian-scientists-announce-six-month-delay-in-carving-1819564767/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
That was my thought too.
Then I considered ionisation, a metal structure would provide a path for the charge accumulated by ionising radiation whereas wood would act as an insulator? I ain't a rocket scientist so that's just a best guess.
I'm with you - wood as a better magnetic shield than metal doesn't sound right to me either.
Is it possible that wood produces less secondary radiation when it interacts with cosmic rays, solar wind and all the other bad stuff up there?
Or is it because wood is considerably less dense than metal and presents fewer nuclei as targets?
wood is better at shielding neutrons, but you'd need it to be 2-3 feet thick to shield 90% of them...
However that may work out, a wood shell is necessarily thicker to provide equivalent strength as metal, so maybe THAT has something to do with it.
[/me cannot get wooden cyberman image out of my head]
Water is a good shielding material for space radiation, so I'm wondering if it's the water content of the wood that might do it? But a) I'd have thought you'd need a thick bit of wood for that to work, and b) I'd have thought the wood would lose moisture once exposed to space. Yes, definitely more info required on that.
I found a few sources saying that since wood is transparent to the radio frequencies used for communications, satellite antennas can be inside the body of the satellite rather than being unfurled outside, which is a simpler design. But that still doesn't make sense, unless it happens that wood is also opaque to the radiation that makes up damaging cosmic rays.
What sort of wood ?
[1]Plywood or some [2]hardwood or what ?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plywood
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwood
Re: What sort of wood ?
Article: "The wood used in its construction is Honoki, a type of Japanese magnolia tree"
details like that are easily missed, though, and also they did not specify particle vs ply vs regular as far as I can tell.
We Are Groot
Shirley this should be called 'GrootSat'?
There was a programme on the BBC Radio 4, I think, quite recently about the use of wood rather than metals for making aircraft. Wood actually being a lot better for some components, as it is lighter for the same amount of strength and has other useful properties such as thermal insulation, but for some reason teh engineers wanted to work with metal.
Puts me in mind of the price of 'birds eye Maple': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zflGtguyAR4
For the words see:
http://www.goldenhindmusic.com/lyrics/THREEHAP.html
According to the article "... wooden satellites [...] require less electromagnetic shielding, therefore allowing for a smaller design"
It would be nice to have an explanation of that - why would they need less shielding? In fact as the metal enclosure of a conventional satellite is likely to provide a degree of shielding of the electronics inside it, if anything you would expect a wooden satellite to need additional shielding. Or is my extremely limited grasp of shielding and EMI sorely lacking?