Japan to launch a paper airplane from orbit

KASHIWA, Japan — Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its trip back to Earth.

It's no joke. A prototype passed a durability test in a wind tunnel last month, Japan's space agency adopted it Wednesday for feasibility studies, and a well-known astronaut is interested in participating.

A successful flight from space by an origami plane could have far-reaching implications for the design of re-entry vehicles or space probes for upper atmospheric exploration, said project leader Shinji Suzuki, a professor at Tokyo University's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Suzuki said he was skeptical a decade ago when he first discussed the idea of sending into space a craft made in the tradition of Japan's ancient art of paper folding.

"It sounded like a simply impossible, crazy idea," Suzuki said. "I gave it some more thought, and came to think it may not be ridiculous after all, and could very well survive if it comes down extremely slowly."

In a test outside Tokyo in early February, a prototype about 2.8 inches long and 2 inches wide survived Mach 7 speeds and broiling temperatures up to 446 degrees Fahrenheit in a hypersonic wind tunnel — conditions meant to approximate what the plane would face entering Earth's atmosphere.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, accepted it Wednesday for three years of feasibility studies and promised up to $300,000 in funding per year.

Takuo Toda, the head of the Japan Origami Airplane Association, had nursed the idea of flying a shuttle-shaped paper plane since NASA in 1977 launched its first space shuttle Enterprise, a craft without an engine or heat shield that was used to perform test flights in the atmosphere.

He spent 18 months figuring out how to fold a perfect origami spacecraft from a plain sheet of paper — without cutting, stitching or taping it — and tested hundreds of designs in the process.

"Then I thought, perhaps I could someday have it fly back to Earth from space," Toda said. "Nobody took it seriously, saying it would burn instantly."

Toda and Suzuki first met about 10 years ago, when Suzuki and other scientists attended Toda's launching of a 6.6-foot-long giant paper craft from the top of a mountain.

Astronaut Koichi Wakata would throw several origami shuttles into the wake of the international space station, which travels at Mach 20 some 250 miles above Earth — if the JAXA feasibility studies pan out, Suzuki said.

Toda and Suzuki plan to write a message of peace on the planes in several languages, along with a request for anyone spotting them to notify the team.

"Just imagine, children around the world would be anxiously waiting for the return of our origami shuttle, perhaps looking up into the sky from time to time," Suzuki said. "That would be great fun."