JPL 3D-Printed Part Springs Forward

What’s Happening

Not gonna lie, Description With a simple motion, a jack-in-the-box-like spring designed at NASA’s 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’s Mercury One on Feb. […] Photojournal Navigation Science Photojournal JPL 3D-Printed Part Springs… (shocking, we know)

Photojournal Home Photojournal Search Latest Content Galleries Feedback RSS About 2 Min Read JPL 3D-Printed Part Springs Forward PIA26706 Credits: Proteus Space Image Addition Date: 02/26/2026 Downloads PIA26706 Figure A JPEG (82.

The Details

95 KB) PIA26706 Animation MOV (3. 33 MB) Description With a simple motion, a jack-in-the-box-like spring designed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory showed the potential of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, to cut costs and complexity for futuristic space antennas.

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. Figure A Figure A is a still image of JACC after deployment, taken above Antarctica.

Why This Matters

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. JACC’s success demonstrates that 3D-printed mechanisms can be built faster, cheaper, and with less complexity than traditionally fabricated space hardware. 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.

Scientists and researchers are watching this development closely.

Key Takeaways

• Weighing just over 1 pound (498 grams), it is about 4 inches (10 centimeters) on each side.
• The second demonstration payload aboard Mercury One is the Solid Underconstrained Multi-Frequency (SUM) Deployable Antenna for Earth Science.

The Bottom Line

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. The second demonstration payload aboard Mercury One is the Solid Underconstrained Multi-Frequency (SUM) Deployable Antenna for Earth Science.

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