LignoSat, the World's First Satellite Made of Wood!

 LignoSat developed by Kyoto University, Japan and the logging firm Sumitomo Forestry aimed at using wood for space exploration! Ligno stands for wood in Latin and you would certainly remember Lignite, a form of coal, from your school days. LignoSat has been made of wood from honoki, a magnolia tree native in Japan. Choice of material was determined through a 10 month long experiment onboard the International Space Station. It has been assembled through a traditional Japanese crafts technique without screws or glue. That is rather surprising, to assemble a satellite without screws or glue! Of course, it has some traditional aluminium structures and electronic components as well, without which it will not be able to function as an amateur radio satellite for communication.


First in the series, LignoSat 1, is a one unit cubesat with 10 cm for each side and weighs just 900 gm. It was sent to the International Space Station onboard Dragon capsule by SpaceX's Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket. LignoSat 1 has been loaded in a special container by JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. It will be deployed into orbit from Kibo, the Japanese module of International Space Station. The next one in the series, LignoSat 2, a two unit CubeSat, is planned to be launched in 2026. Conventional satellites made primarily from aluminium generate aluminium oxides while burning in the atmosphere during reentry after their useful life. This could damage the protective ozone layer, especially when large numbers are involved in future. Hence the experiment with a wooden satellite.

Interesting part for radio amateurs is that the satellite will extract amateur radio callsigns from the FM packet data signals sent to the satellite. It will further respond back by using the CW downlink to send thank you message with the extracted callsign. That will be really a thrilling experience, though I do not have a radio capable of sending digital signals to satellites at present. You may be aware that APRS mode digipeater is already there on International Space Station and is being used by several LEO satellite enthusiasts. But in that case, reply is by the digital mode itself and not by CW. LignoSat 1 will be in orbit within a month and remain there for a period of six months. IARU coordinated downlink frequency of LignoSat 1 is 435.820 MHz.

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