Published: Sept. 25, 2017

In their attempt to prototype areusable crew module for spaceflight, undergraduates Anastasia Muszynski, Dawson Beattyand Andrew Pfefer found unexpected inspiration in the art of origami and received vital support from the .

Muszynski’s passion for paper folding helped the team solve the complex challenge of engineering a module that can be tightly folded for transport and inflated in space—a technique called Miura.The concept proved to be what sheremembers as “one of those creative ideas that just might work.”

Muszynski, Beattyand Pfeferworked on Project Miura under the mentorship of Brian Sanders of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium and received funding from UROP in the form of individual student grants.

Each year UROP provides funding to support hundreds of student-faculty partnerships for projects in all fields of study.