With a simple motion, a jack-in-the-box-like spring designed at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed the potential of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, to cut costs and complexity for futuristic space antennas. Called JPL Additive Compliant Canister (JACC), the spring deployed on the small commercial spacecraft Proteus Space\u2019s\u00a0Mercury One on Feb. 3, 2026. An onboard camera captured this video of the spring popping out of its container as the spacecraft passed over the Pacific Ocean in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n
Figure A is a still image of JACC after deployment, taken above Antarctica.<\/p>\n
JACC is one of two JPL payloads on the spacecraft that are demonstrating new technologies designed to take up reduced volume while precisely deploying antennas on future orbiters.\u00a0JACC\u2019s success demonstrates that 3D-printed mechanisms can be built faster, cheaper, and with less complexity than traditionally fabricated space hardware.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Printed out of titanium, JACC uses three times fewer parts than similar structures: Combined into a single part is a hinge, panel, compression spring, and two torsion springs. Weighing just over 1 pound (498 grams), it is about 4 inches (10 centimeters) on each side. The spring, which extends from a packed height of just over 1 inch to about 6 inches (3 centimeters to 15 centimeters), is modeled after communication antennas commonly used on satellites.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The second demonstration payload aboard Mercury One is the Solid Underconstrained Multi-Frequency (SUM) Deployable Antenna for Earth Science. Together with JACC, the two payloads go by the name Prototype Actuated Nonlinear Deployables Offering Repeatable Accuracy Stowed on a Box (PANDORASBox). They were both conceived, built, tested, and delivered for flight by JPL in less than one year on minimal budgets.<\/p>\n
Mercury One launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Nov. 28, 2025, as part of SpaceX\u2019s Transporter-15 mission.<\/p>\n
JPL internal research development funds supported JACC, as did NASA\u2019s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a simple motion, a jack-in-the-box-like spring designed at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed the potential of additive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,88940,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-312836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-photojournal","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}