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Origami – in Space

By Shlomo Maital

    Recently, my grandson and I followed YouTube instructions and built an origami military tank that shoots paper pellets, with the help of an elastic band.  It was challenging and took a second try. 

    Origami originated in Japan, following the 7^th century CE when paper was brought to Japan – and the art of folding paper quickly ensued.  A brilliant New York Times article by Kenneth Chang describes ‘bloom pattern’ origami —  ‘rotationally symmetric, around the center’, like petals of a flower. 

   Bloom pattern origami creates truly beautiful paper folding.  But – is that all?

   Consider the James Webb Space Telescope, that brings us almost daily incredible photographs from space.  The whole telescope had to be folded compactly in order to fit inside the 5.4 meter space in the Ariane 5 rocket that launched it.  Once in space, the telescope would unfold, like the petals of a very complex flower.  The crucial sunshade of the telescope is 21 meters!  Four times as big.  As big as 11 tall men stretched end to end, head to heel – and a six-year-old to boot. 

   But how to do this?

    Origami.  It is an origami problem, in reverse.  Take the final telescope. Then, calculate how to fold it, to fit neatly into the launch rocket.    Like origami. 

      The telescope and its crucial sunshade were folded 12 times. 

       The skill in calculating how to do this involved bloom pattern symmetry.

       One of the key principles of creative innovation is X + Y.  That is, combining two things that seem unrelated.

         Space telescope, = X.    Origami bloom symmetry = Y.  X + Y.  Presto.  Folded and unfolded space telescope. 

         Some pretty smart people figured this out.  Well done!