WISA Woodsat™, the first wooden satellite, celebrates UN’s World Space Week by launching an initiative to collect 100 Messages to Planet Earth and by taking selected messages onboard WISA Woodsat for a space ride.
World Space Week from October 4 to 10 is an official United Nations’ theme week that is celebrated in over 95 nations. The week has its origins in the commemoration of the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, kicking off the space age, but today the week has a broader significance as an international celebration of science and technology, and their contribution to the betterment of the human condition.
“WISA Woodsat™ is an interesting material science mission, and a satellite made of renewable raw material is a message. Resources of our planet are finite. We need to adapt our lifestyle to the resources and use renewable, recyclable, and reusable materials,” says Ari Voutilainen, WISA Woodsat project manager for UPM Plywood.
Now you have a unique opportunity to send your own Message to Planet Earth by launching it to space with WISA Woodsat™. Propose your Message to Planet Earth by sending a direct message (DM) to @wisawoodsat either in Twitter or Instagram by November 6, 2021. See wisawoodsat.space for more specific instructions.
Our team will select a set of 100 messages, that will travel to space with WISA Woodsat. We will publish the selected messages on the WISA Woodsat homepage, wisawoodsat.space, and other media.
“Adding the Messages to Planet Earth to satellite’s payload is not only a pleasure, but also another effort to popularize space technology and it’s benefits. From space you have a unique perspective of our blue planet and our responsibility take good care of it,” says WISA Woodsat mission manager Jari Mäkinen of Arctic Astronautics.
The WISA Woodsat team is currently preparing the final assembly of the satellite and a spare one, and they are scheduled to be ready for flight by the end of 2021.
For further information please contact:
Ari Voutilainen, tel. +358 40 6719995, e-mail: ari.voutilainen (at) upm.com
Jari Mäkinen, tel. +358 40 550 9198, e-mail: jari (at) kitsat.fi
Pictures and video for media: https://materialhub.upm.com/l/bH9_mdR7TTTB
UPM, Media Relations
Mon-Fri 9:00-16:00 EET
tel. +358 40 588 3284
media@upm.com
About WISA Woodsat
WISA Woodsat is the world’s first satellite using wood in its primary structure. It is made of WISA-Birch plywood, which is coated against strong UV radiation using a new atomic layer deposition method. The comparison panels are coated with industrial UV lacquer. WISA Woodsat will be launched to space from New Zealand using Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. The mission is exploring the behavior of plywood in space for a period of two years. The countdown to WISA Woodsat’s launch can be followed on the mission website wisawoodsat.space and in social media channels with the handles @wisawoodsat and #wisawoodsat.
UPM Plywood
UPM Plywood offers high quality WISA® plywood and veneer products for construction, vehicle flooring, LNG shipbuilding, parquet manufacturing and other industrial applications. In 2020 UPM Plywood sales was EUR 400 million and it had 2,100 employees. UPM has five plywood mills and one veneer mill in Finland as well as plywood mills in Russia and Estonia. – www.wisaplywood.com
WISA, WISA WOODSAT and WOODSAT are trademarks of UPM Plywood.
UPM
We deliver renewable and responsible solutions and innovate for a future beyond fossils across six business areas: UPM Biorefining, UPM Energy, UPM Raflatac, UPM Specialty Papers, UPM Communication Papers and UPM Plywood. As the industry leader in responsibility we are committed to the UN Business Ambition for 1.5°C and the science-based targets to mitigate climate change. We employ 18,000 people worldwide and our annual sales are approximately EUR 8.6 billion. Our shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd. UPM Biofore – Beyond fossils. www.upm.com
Follow UPM on Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | #UPM #biofore #beyondfossils
Arctic Astronautics
Arctic Astronautics is a start-up from Finland, which has created the Kitsat educational satellite and the related STEM teaching material package. Kitsat is a fully functional one-unit CubeSat, specifically made for educational use with earthly components. It can be also used for stratospheric flights or easily upgraded with space-qualified parts into a qualified satellite, as demonstrated with WISA Woodsat(TM). Arctic Astronautics graduated from the European Space Agency's Business Incubation Center in Finland in 2020. – www.arcticastronautics.fi
Huld
Huld is a European technology design house with experience from the space industry since 1989. It is now also reaching out to the New Space industry combining software and testing knowhow with tailor-made additive manufacturing mechanisms and out-of-the-box thinking. Huld provides the additively manufactured deployable camera boom and related structures for the mission. – huld.io
