NASA presented a prototype origami system for spacecraft photovoltaic cells

Despite the fact that the efficiency of photocells is constantly growing, due to the emergence of new technologies and developments, a sufficiently large area of ​​photocells is required to provide spacecraft with energy. It is clear that the usual "umbrella" solar cells in the unfolded state in space is not sent. Therefore, it is necessary to invent new ways and methods of reducing the area of ​​folded batteries and a reliable system of their deployment in outer space.

About one such system on Habré already wrote : a team of engineers from BYU (Brigham Young University), with the involvement of physicist Robert Lang, a specialist in " scientific origami ", began work on finding effective ways of folding / unfolding solar panels.
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At the end of last year, Robert Leng and space device developers began work on a solar panel project, 1 centimeter thick, the diameter of the entire system in the folded state is only 2.7 meters. In the unfolded state, the diameter of the system increases to 25 meters, which allows the solar battery to produce about 250 kW of energy. This is enough to supply the three ISS.



Now NASA specialists who are interested in the project have joined this team. Recently, developers have demonstrated a prototype system, on a scale of 1/20 compared with the estimated size of the planned system.



According to scientists, such origami systems can be used not only for large spacecraft, but also for portable satellites like CubeSats. In addition, the origami principle can be used to create a system of folding antennas. All this can radically change the design of some basic elements of space devices.





It takes some time to implement the project, but, as we can see, there is already a prototype, so such a system, one should think, is quite real.

Via nasa