Sumitomo Forestry is part of the Sumitomo Group of Japan which was founded over four hundred years ago. They have joined with Kyoto University to work on developing wooden materials that are highly resistance to damage from temperatures changes and sunlight found in space. They intend to be the first to build satellites out of wood with a target date of 2023. Sumitomo has begun carrying out research on tree growth and the possible use of wooden materials in space. The partnership will start by experimenting with different types of wood subjected to extreme environments on Earth. Debris from launches and defunct satellites is an increasing problem as satellites are launched into orbit. Wooden satellites would burn up without the release of dangerous substances into the atmosphere or showing the Earth from fragments as they disintegrate on the way down.
Most satellites contain aluminum, Kevlar and aluminum alloys which are all able to survive the temperatures extremes and the constant rain of hard radiation in the vacuum of space. This survival ability also means that they can continue in Earth orbit far longer than their intended operational lifespan. In addition, when satellites fall from orbit, aluminum disintegrates into thousands of tiny particles. These aluminum particles float in the atmosphere for many years, potentially causing an environmental problem.
In addition to the fact that wooden satellites will burn up completely on reentry, the wood is also transparent to electromagnetic waves as opposed to aluminum. This means that antenna can be built inside the satellites and do not have to be deployed outside the satellite in order to function properly. This makes the satellites simpler to design and deploy.
Takao Doi is a professor at Kyoto University and Japanese astronaut. He visited the International Space Station (ISS) in March of 2008. One of his activities while on the ISS was throwing around a boomerang in space that had been specifically designed for use in microgravity. He said, “We are very concerned with the fact that all the satellites which re-enter the Earth's atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles which will float in the upper atmosphere for many years. Eventually it will affect the environment of the Earth. The next stage will be developing the engineering model of the satellite, then we will manufacture the flight model.”
Experts are warning that if we keep putting junk into orbit, someday we may not be able to launch any new satellites. There has been a lot of research on how to reduce junk in space and a number of approaches are being tested. The are about six thousand satellites in Earth orbit with about sixty percent of them no longer functioning. Euroconsult issued a report that estimated that almost a thousand satellite will be launched every year until 2030. By 2028 there could be over fifteen thousand satellites in Earth orbit. In addition there are many pieces of space junk generated by launch vehicles parts.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has already launched over nine hundred Starlink Satellites and has plans to launch thousands more in the near future. These fragments of space junk are traveling at over twenty-two thousand miles per hour which means that even small pieces can do serious damage to anything they hit. In 2006, a tiny piece of space debris hit the ISS and blew a chip out of a hardened window.