Origami is Being Used in the Space Technology

Almost all of us made this paper boat at some point in our life and played with this.

Some of you might have pushed your limit and made this far also.

Now, do you know what this art is called? It is called Origami- the art of folding paper and making some object/structure out of it.

Most of us knew this. Most of us also believe that these all are for fun only.

But will you believe that NASA scientists also apply the origami technique in launching rockets or satellites in the sky?

Allow me to explain.

Scientists try to make rocket hardware as small and concise as possible. They try to pack as much technology as possible into smaller space-bound packages.

Example: An well discussed such hardware is Starshade. Starshade is a giant flower-like design that will help astronauts or scientists to take pictures of different exoplanets. Taking a direct photo of exoplanets is difficult because of the brighter lights of suns and other stars.

Starshade is being designed to cover the bright lights so that the best photos of the celestial objects can be taken in space. You can see below.

Now the challenge was to launch that giant-sized flower through a rocket. So, scientists took the help of origami art to turn impossible into possibilities. And this is illustrated like this:

Now, you understand how your childhood-made-paper-boat-making technique is related to space-related rockets and satellites.

Reference:

1. Origami - Wikipedia
2. Flower power: NASA reveals spring starshade animation - Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond our Solar System
3. Pic: Google