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A tiny Finnish satellite could make history later this year as the world’s first plywood satellite and it will even have a selfie stick to record the moment.
The WISA Woodsat is developed by the Finnish company Arctic Astronautics, Ltd .; the European Space Agency, or ESA; and Finnish forester UPM, manufacturer of WISA plywood.
On July 9, after technical tests of the Woodsat’s birch plywood outer shell, ESA certified it for flight.
“The world’s first wooden satellite is now certified for rocket ride and the final pre-launch phase can begin,” UPM said in a July 9 press release. The satellite is expected to be launched into space from New Zealand on Rocket Lab’s reusable Electron rocket before the end of the year.
WISA Woodsat was born from an idea around 2015 from Arctic Astronautics’ Strategy Director, Jari Mäkinen.
“I started to think seriously about the wooden satellite (s), because I made wooden model airplanes, I flew ‘real’ wooden planes and got involved in the technology. space since [the] 1990, ”Mäkinen said in an email to Defense One. “I felt that wood could be a good material, especially plywood.”
Plywood is a more environmentally friendly substitute for the Kitsat’s plastic outer casing, and a 2017 launch balloon test flight of a cube-sized box of birch and birch plywood that the company launched “primarily for fun” showed them that wood “and birch in particular, withstand upper atmosphere conditions, almost like space, surprisingly well,” said Mäkinen.
Additionally, using plywood on a satellite launched into low Earth orbit could mean that depleted satellites would burn out after losing power and start falling back to Earth. So the satellite wouldn’t end up adding one more piece to the thousands of pieces of space junk orbiting the planet.
The monitoring of these 32,000 pieces of debris in orbit around the Earth is the responsibility of the 18th Space Control Squadron at Vandenberg Air Base. Debris creates a threat to functional satellites and sometimes the Earth. Twice this year, major parts of a Chinese rocket body lost power and fell from orbit to crash into the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
“It has become more than obvious that anyone who sets up a satellite or any other instrument in space has a responsibility as a good steward of space to do their part to mitigate the addition of additional space debris,” said Rich Cooper, vice president of strategic communications for the Space Foundation.
The WISA Woodsat is not entirely made of wood, just the outer shell. The edges and the boom of the camera are extremely light, 3D printed metal plates, and under the wood panels are small electronic boards. But those components are also expected to burn to the point where they leave a minimal trace, Rampini said.
ESA will also use the flight to test a quartz crystal microbalance sensor and a super-sensitive pressure sensor in space before using them for other missions, Mäkinen said.
The WISA Woodsat measures 10 x 10 x 10 centimeters, which is small enough to fit in your hand, and is based on the Arctic Astronautics ‘Kitsat’ cubesats that the company invented to provide inexpensive research tools for educators. .
ESA worked with Arctic and UPM to test and modify modified birch plywood to withstand low Earth orbit conditions. At that altitude, about 600 kilometers above sea level, the plywood will face a constant bombardment of highly corrosive atomic oxygen, which will eat away at the surface much like a sandblaster beats bricks, Rampini said.
Much like plywood in new construction, wood will give off fumes in a process known as “outgassing.” This could affect the satellite instruments. The Woodsat camera will record the position of the satellite.
“The first two months will be the most interesting months for degassing because that’s where you have the highest peak,” Rampini said. “If he survives two years, that would be good.”
Mäkinen did not expect to launch a wooden satellite into space this year.
When they learned in December 2020 that Japanese company Sumitomo Forestry was working with Kyoto University to become the first to launch a wooden satellite into space, the company rushed.
The Finnish company UPM, one of the largest forestry companies in the world, quickly became a sponsor.
“At that point, I don’t know if they panicked or not,” Rampini said. “They called us.”
“We are now here with a real satellite, practically ready to fly,” Mäkinen said.
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