Voyager 1 by NASA
A new antenna made by Japanese scientists is inspired by origami to solve the problem of weaker signals emitted by smaller satellites.
If you have so much difficulty making origami with a simple sheet of paper on a kitchen table, what would it be like to apply the same principles to a satellite antenna destined for Space. But that’s exactly what a team of engineers in Japan has just accomplished, and the results are truly extraordinary.
Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Science have unveiled an antenna for small satellites that directly inspired by the art of origamiand their project could solve one of the biggest bottlenecks in modern space science: the fact that our smaller satellites simply cannot transmit signals with sufficient volume!
CubeSats are the workhorses of the modern space age. Cheap, standardized and small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, these little spacecraft have democratized access to orbit. Universities build satellites, startups launch them, and space agencies use them to test ideas that would be too risky for a large-scale mission. But there was always a catch. The smaller the satellite, the smaller the antenna will be and, consequently, the signal will be weaker. For a CubeSat trying to transmit data from Deep Space, or even just to maintain a reliable connection from Low Earth Orbit, this presents a serious problem.
The team’s solution is extremely elegant. They took the “flasher” pattern, a classic origami fold that allows a flat sheet to fold fold into a remarkably compact stackand applied it to an implantable antenna. When stored for launch, the entire system fits inside a box just ten centimeters square and six centimeters deep, weighing just 64 grams. To give you an idea, it is approximately the same as a small chocolate bar. Once in orbit, a set of rods made from materials designed to return to a predefined shape when released expands the antenna to about two and a half times its original size.
The antenna itself is constructed from a flexible two-layer membrane of conductive and dielectric fabrics, with tiny U-shaped circuit elements sewn directly into the fabric to control exactly how radio waves reflect off the surface. This reflective matrix design means that the antenna can focus and direct a signal without physically moving, something crucial on a spacecraft where every ounce of mechanical complexity represents a potential point of failure. In laboratory tests, it achieved a gain of 18 dBic, a measure of the power and precision with which it can direct a signal. For a device that fits in a coat pocket, this performance is truly impressive.
The antenna is intended for OrigamiSat-2a CubeSat approximately the size of a large thermos, scheduled to launch later this year. Applications range from satellite internet services and disaster monitoring to future lunar communications, where small satellites will need to perform much better than expected for their size.
Space engineering has always required ingenuity in the face of limitations, and this team found the answer not in some cutting-edge laboratory material, but in a fold of paper. The idea is as simple as it is beautiful, but it seems like sometimes the most powerful solutions have been hidden in plain sight for centuries.
