Whether applied to auto collisions or rocket landings, absorbing energy from impacts is a valuable trait, and industries have been working on various solutions for years. For spacecraft, landing safely has entailed everything from inflatable airbag systems to sky cranes to retro-thrusters. But what if the force of impact never made it to the spacecraft at all?
That’s the idea being pursued by Hiromi Yasuda and colleagues at the University of Washington. They’re using foldable materials inspired by origami to not only absorb the shock of impact, but actually change it into a force that travels back in the opposite direction. While the prototypes are made out of paper, the researchers say that many different materials could be used, possibly changing how rockets land in the future.
The researchers publishing their findings Thursday in Science Advances.
Yasuda’s team came up with a unique cell that twists and folds, absorbing the ...
