CRS-31

Among the cargo that arrived at the station on 5 November 2024 was a 10 cm wooden cube weighing roughly 900 grams. LignoSat, developed by Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry, was built from honoki — a Japanese magnolia — joined without screws or glue using traditional woodworking techniques. Its purpose was practical: demonstrate that wood, burning cleanly to ash on reentry rather than shedding metallic particles into the upper atmosphere, could serve as a spacecraft structural material.

The CRS-31 mission set two other firsts on the same flight. On 8 November, three days after docking, Dragon fired its aft-facing Draco thrusters for 12.5 minutes to reboost the station's altitude — the first time a Dragon had performed that maneuver, testing capability relevant to the eventual US Deorbit Vehicle. LignoSat itself was released from JAXA's Kibo module on 9 December 2024.