The plan to launch the world's first wooden satellite continues. The flight model parts are almost ready and we are getting ready for assembly. This will be done in the clean room of the Aalto University where the preparations take place: the first step is going through the the procedures that ensure a smooth and safe assembly of the satellite.
This video shows the location and contains comments from Samuli Nyman, our chief engineer, and Bruce Clayhills, who is a research engineer at Aalto and co-designed the electronics for WISA Woodsat.
Assembly will begin in early October and will not take long. Another round of tests is scheduled for the end of October, with some subsystems being tested already before. If all goes according to plan, the satellite will be ready for space in November.
The actual launch date will depend on the licensing paperwork and Rocket Lab's flight schedule. Originally, the launch was slated for mid-September, but was brought forward mainly due to the launch incident that occurred in May that put the launch on hold. Usually, the licening prodecure takes about a year, but we have tried to speed up the process – WISA Woodsat project was made public in last April and started in February 2021.