A few years ago, I attempted to make an origami (paper folded) animal. Armed with a square of paper and what I can only describe as misplaced confidence, I managed to produce something that looked vaguely threatening rather than like a flapping crane. If I struggled that much with a single sheet of paper on a kitchen table, I can’t begin to imagine what it takes to apply the same principle to a satellite antenna destined for space. But that is exactly what a team of engineers in Japan has just pulled off and the results are really quite extraordinary. Engineers at the Institute of Science Tokyo have unveiled an antenna for small satellites that borrows directly from the art of origami and their design could solve one of the most frustrating bottlenecks in modern space science, the fact that our smallest satellites simply can't talk loudly enough! An example of a cube sat.…