WoodSat

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Actually, it was the plywood manufacturing consortium. They just sponsored the ham radio WoodSat for publicity, and to show it could be done!
 
“WISA Woodsat will go where no wood has gone before". I assume they mean wood into space. I call BS on that statement. The PR people need to be careful with such wide phrases. Australia's second satellite, Australia Oscar 5, had wood on the antenna attachment points. I am sure there are other examples of wood in space. I suspect wood would have been studied on the ISS as well.
 
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“WISA Woodsat will go where no wood has gone before". I assume they mean wood into space. I call BS on that statement. The PR people need to be careful with such wide phrases. Australia's second satellite, Australia Oscar 5, had wood on the antenna attachment points. I am sure there are other examples of wood in space. I suspect wood would have been studied on the ISS as well.
Meh. Marketing hyperbole. I think they're talking about wood as a structural part of a spacecraft. Don't overthink it.
 
As I see, this WoodSat is actually CubeSat that aims to test the suitability of wood in space. If I'm not wrong, it doesn't have any scientific instruments, but I think that there's not so much space in orbit to launch sats just to test something. Why not combine several missions in one? I mean that companies that will develop this sat could equip it with a special camera like Caiman imager from Dragonfly Aerospace and observe Earth at the same time. Or do you think it will disrupt the mission?
 
Objects without any propulsion in LEO will fall back into the atmosphere in surprisingly little time, so real estate isn't as big a problem as it is in higher orbits. Wood is probably great for the burning up part. :)

Adding instruments adds weight. And cost. And possibly size. And there's so much imaging available already that for a short lived cubesat to take some pictures is hardly any more useful than echoing some ham radio signals.

Wood as a structural material for a satellite surprises me due to its nonisotropicity and, I would expect, outgassing. Using plywood obviously helps with the former, up to a point, and probably worsens the latter, due to the glue. So I bet it's not just "marketing hyperbole" but also marketing hype, a gimmick. I'd still rather build a cubesat (in the unlikely event that I ever build a cubesat) with aluminum, titanium, and/or some composite or other.
 
Objects without any propulsion in LEO will fall back into the atmosphere in surprisingly little time, so real estate isn't as big a problem as it is in higher orbits. Wood is probably great for the burning up part. :)
LEO goes out to 225 minute orbits. Lots of stuff in LEO that will be there for a long, long time.
 
Fair enough. I guess I should have written VLEO*, the sort of altitude that a cubesat like this one will occupy.

* A new orbit designation. Suppose it will catch on?
 
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