NASA is developing an origami-inspired design for a “smart” radiator that will regulate heat on small satellites

NASA is developing an origami-inspired design for a “smart” radiator that will regulate heat on small satellites: http://go.nasa.gov/2kOScnC

NASA Reports: Japan’s ancient art of paper folding has inspired the design of a potentially trailblazing “smart” radiator that a NASA technologist is now developing to remove or retain heat on small satellites.

Vivek Dwivedi, a technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has teamed with a couple of researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah to advance an unconventional radiator that would fold and unfold, much like the V-groove paper structures created with origami, the art of transforming a flat piece of paper into a finished sculpture.

In collaboration with Raymond Adomaitis, a professor at the University of Maryland in College Park, Dwivedi plans to lower the transition temperature by applying very thin films of silver and titanium to the vanadium-oxide using sputtering and a technique called atomic layer deposition, or ALD. ALD is performed in a state-of-the-art reactor developed by both Dwivedi and Adomaitis. With ALD, engineers literally can apply atomic-sized layers of different materials onto intricately shaped structures — much like how a cook layers different ingredients to make a pan of lasagna.

We're developing an origami-inspired design for a “smart” radiator that will regulate heat on small satellites: https://t.co/AOUPaO9hXx pic.twitter.com/OIl01Ry9WE

— NASA (@NASA) January 31, 2017