
NASA Invents a Folding Solar Panel Inspired by Origami - ColinWright
http://www.wired.com/2014/09/nasa-invents-folding-solar-panel-inspired-origami/?mbid=social_twitter
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theoh
This is a variation on a well-known technique:
[http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~sdg/dstruct/wrapping.html](http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~sdg/dstruct/wrapping.html)

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Gravityloss
Folding fan -like circular solar panels by ATK were scheduled for NASA's Orion
spacecraft, but at least for starters it's instead going to look just like
ESA's ATV with four rectangular "fingers", since the service module is ATV-
derived.

[http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/mpcv/](http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/mpcv/)

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martiuk
Wouldn't it be better to have a motor to spin it open and closed rather than
having multiple motors to pull it open?

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Scaevolus
The Miura fold is a simpler way to accomplish this, requiring only a single
diagonal force to unfold it.

It's pretty handy for (disposable) maps, too!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miura_fold](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miura_fold)

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joshdance
I love combining art and science like this. Here is an article that has a
video about the project - [http://news.byu.edu/archive13-nov-
origami.aspx](http://news.byu.edu/archive13-nov-origami.aspx)

