Good Enough For The Spruce Goose, Good Enough For Satellites

Wood products have a long history in aviation even though modern materials have eclipsed them in many areas. But lately we’ve noticed several plywood satellites, including this one the ESA plans to launch. The WISA Woodsat is a test of WISA plywood, a particular brand made in Finland to show how it can withstand the orbital environment.

Why not? Plywood is cheap and easy to form. You probably don’t want to make a pressure vessel with it, but most satellites don’t need that anyway.

Oddly enough, the project is the brainchild of broadcaster [Jari Mäkinen] who is known for making models of things including cubesats. From wooden model to actual satellite seemed a logical connection.

The wood has some challenges, including weakness after forming, radiation and impact damage, and the tendency of wood to be stronger in one direction than others. In addition, the wood requires treatment to remove moisture and a thin aluminum oxide coating to prevent outgassing. Sensors onboard include two cameras and a very sensitive balance to detect contamination. There’s also a 3D printed electrical system inside the 100 millimeter cube.

The satellite should launch towards the end of the year, beating out the Japanese wooden satellite we saw earlier. Maybe this will make cubesats even more affordable. We’ve been watching this project in Sunday’s Links column too, so check it out.

31 thoughts on “Good Enough For The Spruce Goose, Good Enough For Satellites

    1. “Then we also perform atomic layer deposition, adding a very thin aluminium oxide layer – typically used to encapsulate electronics. This should minimise any unwanted vapours from the wood, known as ‘outgassing’ in the space field, while also protecting against the erosive effects of atomic oxygen.”

      So they have to take the ‘inexpensive’ and ‘sustainable’ wood product, put it through a handful of expensive and chemical/energy intense processes to even approach the performance of the industry standard.

      Obvious publicity stunt is obvious.

      1. “The WISA Woodsat is a test of WISA plywood, a particular brand made in Finland to show how it can withstand the orbital environment.”

        I don’t think the market for plywood for satellites will ever be so big it would be worth to place even an ad in the local newspaper.

        Of course this is a paid advertisement for WISA (“plywood for any location”). Why do you feel it is such a bad thing? Hackaday reports on far less cool hacks every day.

      2. I wonder who they convinced to let them use their ALD machine. There’s no way in hell that the technicians at my lab would allow me to put a piece of wood in the deposition chamber. The outgassing from the wood would contaminate the whole system and it would have to be taken apart, cleaned/sandblasted, and all the deposition monitoring instrumentation would need to be recalibrated.

  1. Wood cheaper than aluminium ? I doubt really. Except for the performance, demo, whatever you call it, I don’t see any advantage of wood, only inconvenient. Exposed to the sun, it can burn or crack (due to thermal expansion) and even more that there’s no atmosphere to protect from the UV rays, it’s weak, heavy, and not easy to process industrially. The only good point (for me), is that it could make a nice firework when it reenters the atmosphere.

  2. Why?
    The cost of raw materials for the “casing” is perhaps 5 orders of magnitude less than the other costs associated with a cube sat. Wood, of any form, is quite literally inferior to more traditional aerospace materials in every way.

      1. Off-gassing, material variability, lack of EMI shielding, contamination risk, strength per weight, I could go on…

        “Then we also perform atomic layer deposition, adding a very thin aluminium oxide layer – typically used to encapsulate electronics. This should minimise any unwanted vapours from the wood, known as ‘outgassing’ in the space field, while also protecting against the erosive effects of atomic oxygen.”

        So basically it is an aluminum enclosure, just with more steps.

        1. It seems like wood might be able to gracefully absorb impacts from debris or maybe it could serve as hydrocarbon storage to be ignited for controlled combustion, can it retain water or else (leaded gasoline)? It seems as if the challenge here is to imagine for a moment if the disadvantages could be taken into consideration but are there possible advantages? So yeah, publicity, but wood is nifty.

    1. The de Havilland Mosquito. Best piston-engined aircraft of WWII.

      I would like to see much more wood launched up there, beyond the reaches of orbital decay, as it removes carbon from the biosphere. If we lofted up whole tree trunks with a solar-powered rail gun, could be useful building material for space stations etc.

  3. Even if this can be turned into something reliable enough (out-gassing, dust, bacterial contamination and who knows what else (they’ve probably got a decent idea about that by now), my first guess is that getting such a thing certified just adds needless complications.

    But if you turn it around: Why would you want to use wood in the first place?
    From what I gather this whole thing started by some guy with a wood fetish with a curiosity of how far he can push it.

    He did manage to get himself sponsored by a plywood manufacturer and a bunch of media attention. No wonder his satellite has a selfie stick.

    So, again, just because it’s possible does not make it a good idea.
    Does wood have any advantage in this application, or is it just as ridiculous as solar roadways.

    1. Biggest advantage I can see is nature is superb at recycling carbon in ways we can then harvest to make more. Aluminium really doesn’t do that after its turn to oxide dust on the way back down..

      And its probably easier to be sure a wooden structure will burn up fully – its a natural insulator so the heat of reentry can’t be conducted away as easily – so many less meaningful bits should be able to survive.

      So I’d say its probably not as bad as solar roadways – though as under the right situation they actually do make sense, its just not the way we currently work (for instance if everyone switched to bicycles and public transport, the surface would be under much less stress, more exposed to the sun, stay cleaner etc), so maybe it is the same level, just seems a little less so as we don’t have quite such an established lifecycle for space stuff…

    2. I agree. The whole thing is basically just an advertisement for his kitsat company and the wood company. I mean, more power to him, he got us all to read and comment on it…

  4. Donkey Eco Activism has arrived in space …..
    Wait, we do have to save the planet but we won’t do that by sending wooden satellites into space, as well as using electric cars loaded with diesel generators. Most people only see the result “the photo”, but it is important to know the road traveled.
    I have been worried about this….

  5. Well, there’s a very, very good reason not to; radiation shielding. Plywood may stop some particle radiation but will do nothing for electromagnetic radiation.

  6. For all the nay sayers shaking their heads: wood has already been used in space. For life critical purposes no less. It is very effective as ablative heat shield.

    And then there is always serendipity. When you get an answer to a question you didn’t know to ask.

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