Astronomy

Wood seems like a good choice for a satellite - it's lightweight, easy to machine into different shapes, it's cheap and readily available. It also doesn't conduct heat as well as aluminum or steel, but I don't know enough about building satellites to know if that's a problem.

Not at all surprised this is coming out of Japan; they've been demonstrating for centuries that wood can be used in lieu of metal, often with superior results.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A team of researchers at Kyoto University has been hard at work on a satellite made of wood — and they say it's now scheduled to launch into space next summer in a joint mission between Japan's JAXS space agency and NASA.

"When you use wood on Earth, you have the problems of burning, rotting, and deformation, but in space, you don’t have those problems: there is no oxygen in space, so it doesn’t burn, and no living creatures live in them, so they don’t rot," Koji Murata, a Kyoto University researcher who's been working on the project, told CNN.

It's also roughly as strong per weight as aluminum, according to Murata, and can readily burn up in the atmosphere once decommissioned.

Murata and his team's satellite, dubbed LignoSat, is constructed out of magnolia wood and set to be launched into space as part of JAXA's J-Cube Program, a microsatellite initiative promoting up-and-coming space technologies.

"We don’t know to what extent the satellite can withstand this intense, repeated cycle of temperature difference, so this has to be investigated," he added.

In addition to being more "environmentally friendly," the researchers have speculated that wood could be a compelling choice for spacecraft interiors to protect astronauts from harmful radiation.

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