Arbosat – Enhanced wood for sustainable Space

Arbosat – Towards a new class of sustainable structural materials for small satellites based on enhanced wood

After completing their missions, LEO satellites are typically deorbited to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. However, aluminum, one of the most widely used structural materials for small satellites, undergoes chemical reactions during thermal decomposition that may adversely affect our ozone layer. To address this challenge the Arbosat team is developing a sustainable alternative to aluminum based on enhanced wood material. The approach involves utilizing standard wood, an ubiquitous carbon-neutral and renewable natural composite, processed through a novel thermo-hydromechanical treatment (no chemical additives). By leveraging wood with its unique inherent properties, the result is a high-performance composite structure with excellent mechanical strength and stiffness, low outgassing, and good resistance to space conditions such as radiation, vacuum, and extreme temperatures. It is imperative that along with the material and process development activities a comprehensive test program is conducted. This involves laboratories test campaigns but also IOD/IOV activities.

Within this presentation the current status of the development and testing activities is summarized. Moreover an outlook is given how the usage of enhanced wood material might impact the design of space systems as we are used to.