Origami-inspired materials may help spacecraft survive collisions

Inspired by the paper folding art of origami, scientists are designing materials that can withstand high impact collisions -- an advance that may be used to build reusable spacecraft.

Landing is stressful for reusable rockets because they must handle the force from the impact with the landing pad. One way to combat this is to build legs out of materials that absorb some of the force and soften the blow.

Researchers from University of Washington in the US have developed a novel solution to help reduce impact forces.

Taking inspiration from the Japanese paper-folding art of origami, the team created a paper model of a metamaterial that uses "folding creases" to soften impact forces and instead promote forces that relax stresses in the chain.

"If you were wearing a football helmet made of this material and something hit the helmet, you'd never feel that hit on your head. By the time the energy reaches you, it's no longer pushing. It's pulling," said Jinkyu Yang, an associate professor at