How the lowly egg could help protect future spacecraft

Bioinspired designs could be sturdy astronaut allies. The humble egg is often a symbol of fragility, but there is strength in numbers. According to, egg-based geometry may be sturdy enough to protect future generations of astronauts from the ever-growing threat of space debris.larger than one centimeter currently orbit the Earth, thanks to decades of space travel, rocket launches, and satellite deployments. Each tiny trash bit travels at roughly 17,400 miles per hour, making them immensely dangerous for ongoing missions and exploration efforts. , while researchers test methods to clean up the problem. However,there is still a growing need to protect both people and property above everyone's heads. And that's where eggs come into play. , aluminum eggshell shaped designs arrayed together cooperatively deform in a way that distributes energy across a larger structure, making the overall surface a promising addition in reinforced shielding. These are even stronger when each 'egg' in Wang's prototypes were filled with water. Good ol' HA 3D image of the water-filled aluminum eggshell array metastructure shows the eggshell pattern on an aluminum plate. The second aluminum plate—which goes on top of the eggs—is excluded from the image to help visualize the geometry. Credit: Wang et al. Engineers tested both 3D printed designs and ran computer simulations for standard aluminum plates, water-filled aluminum spheres placed between flat plates, and the novel eggshell arrays. The sandwiched spheres performed the best—reducing a projectile's impact velocity by almost 65 percent, compared to 51 percent from just the plates. The most optimized iterations also included placing the egg models upright so that their narrowed end touches the top aluminum plate. The team still needs to optimize the metamaterial's filling and overall geometry, along the metal thickness and aspect ratios. That said, egg-ified shielding may one day be a common addition to vehicles and satellites destined for low Earth orbit.