Origami 'space flowers' to beam energy down to Earth: Huge orbiting power plant could unfurl like folded paper, says Nasa

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Origami 'space flowers' to beam energy down to Earth: Huge orbiting power plant could unfurl like folded paper, says Nasa

Posted by sciencetech-blog on Monday, August 18, 2014 Label:

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Getting large equipment into space is no easy feat. At nearly £14,000 ($23,400) to send a kilogram into orbit, it's expensive, and room is always limited.

To deal with the problem, Nasa has turned to the ancient art of origami, in the hopes of getting larger solar panels into space.

These solar panels could someday be used in the form of an orbiting power plant that harvests energy from the sun and beams it back down to Earth.

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Nasa's solar array has a diameter of 8.9ft (2.7 metres) when folded and 82ft (25 metres) when unfurled. The design, which looks like a flower blooming, was created by Nasa mechanical engineer, Brian Trease

After two years of research, the space agency has come closer to that goal by creating a solar array with a diameter of 8.9ft (2.7 metres) when folded and 82ft (25 metres) when unfurled.

The design, which looks like a flower blooming, was created by Nasa mechanical engineer, Brian Trease.

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Mr Trease partnered with researchers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, to pursue the idea that spacecraft could be built using origami folds.

Sending the solar arrays up to space would be easy, Mr Trease said, because they could all be folded and packed into a single rocket launch, with 'no astronaut assembly required.'

Shannon Zirbel, a student in mechanical engineering at Brigham Young University, unfolds a solar panel array that was designed using the principles of origami. These solar panels could someday be used in the form of an orbiting power plant that harvests energy from the sun and beams back down to Earth

Panels used in space missions already incorporate simple folds, collapsing like a fan or an accordion.

One technique that has been used for an origami-inspired solar array is called a Miura fold invented by Japanese astrophysicist Koryo Miura.

When you open the structure, it appears to be divided evenly into a checkerboard of parallelograms.

With this particular fold, there's only one way to open or close it: Pull on one corner and the whole thing is open with only a tiny amount of effort.

Mr Miura intended this fold for solar arrays, and in 1995 a solar panel with this design was unfolded on the Space Flyer Unit, a Japanese satellite.

Researchers unfold a prototype of the origami solar array

Despite this test, the technology is still in its early stages. But now, with an emphasis on small satellites and large structures, Mr Trease says arrays inspired by this fold could see renewed usefulness.

COULD A SOLAR FARM IN SPACE POWER OUR FUTURE?

Solar power has had a difficult start on Earth thanks to inefficient panels and high costs. But in space, scientists believe it could transform the way we generate energy.

Now, the space-based solar power – once merely the stuff of science-fiction – could be available sooner than expected if Japan has its way.

Within 25 years, the country plans to make space-based solar power a reality, according to a proposal from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa).

The agency has outlined its plans to create a 1-gigawatt commercial system for space-based solar power, which would provide about the same output as a nuclear power plant.

In a recent IEEE article by Susumu Sasaki, a professor emeritus at Jaxa, outlined the agency's plans create a 1.8 mile long (3 km) man-made island in the harbour of Tokyo Bay.

The island would be studded with 5 billion antennas working together to convert microwave energy into electricity.

The microwaves would be beamed down from a number of giant solar collectors in orbit 22,400 miles (36,000 km) above the Earth.

'The fact that we're going both bigger and smaller may open up domains where it may be relevant again,' Mr Trease said.

The fold that Mr Trease and colleagues used is not a Miura fold, but rather a combination of different folds.

Mr Trease's prototype looks like a blooming flower that expands into a large flat circular surface.

Mr Trease envisions that foldable solar arrays could be used in conjunction with small satellites called CubeSats.

And he says the origami concept could be used in antennas as well. It could be especially appropriate for spacecraft applications where it's beneficial to deploy an object from the centre, outward in all directions.

Origami was originally intended for folding paper, which has almost no thickness, so Mr Trease and colleagues had to be creative when working with the bulkier materials needed for solar panels.

'You have to rethink a lot of that design in order to accommodate the thickness that starts to accumulate with each bend,' he said.

The art has been the subject of serious mathematical analysis only within the last 40 years, Mr Trease said.

There is growing interest in integrating the concepts of origami with modern technologies.

'You think of it as ancient art, but people are still inventing new things, enabled by mathematical tools,' he said.

Brian Trease (pictured), a researcher at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, holds a prototype of a solar panel array that folds up in the style of origami. 'You think of it as ancient art, but people are still inventing new things, enabled by mathematical tools,' he said