The wooden satellite called WISA that entered Earth orbit.
A Finnish satellite handmade by students and sponsored by a plywood (plywood) manufacturer, the satellite’s sides are laminated with the factory’s plywood products and will be consigned to the business rocket company Rocket Lab for launch at the end of the year.
The wooden satellite project, called WISA, is a project in which students learn to make small satellites. The satellite design is a small square satellite with a side length of only 10 cm. Students from all over Finland made the individual modules of the satellite and finally put them together. The students originally completed the satellite with cheap, off-the-shelf hardware and took it up into the sky with a balloon to test it.
But then the project was sponsored by plywood manufacturer WISA, which was willing to fund the satellite into Earth orbit – simply by using their product as the satellite’s side panels. So the project team upgraded the satellite components to ensure it could withstand the harsh environment of space.
Once aloft, the satellite will automatically extend a camera-mounted “selfie stick” to take a picture of itself and send it back to the ground. Although, this action is to monitor the performance of WISA products in space, project manager Jari Mäkinen said, “A satellite with a selfie stick will surely bring joy and good luck to everyone.”
Of course, the satellite not only has beautiful plywood side panels, its main function is to use a communication technology that receives its signal with just a simple low-power receiver and broadcasts using amateur radio frequencies to provide part of the instructional content. The data for the broadcast was provided by some simple sensors and two cameras.
Rocket Lab has undertaken the launch of this satellite, which is scheduled to be launched at the end of the year.
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