In September 2025, the Texas A&M IDEAS² team advanced research and student involvement in deployable tensegrity and pseudoelastic space structures. Five undergraduate researchers contributed to projects involving WAVETRUSS trusses, tensegrity structures, SMA-based solar sail mechanisms, and automated deployment systems.
The team conducted detailed experimental investigations on the WT-OctaSine pseudoelastic truss using a twelve-point motion-tracking system to measure nodal displacements under axial and transverse loading. Additional progress was made on the motorized Double Helix Tensegrity (DHT) tower, which demonstrated repeatable deployment. A 30-inch static DHT model was also constructed to validate scalability.
These accomplishments highlight Texas A&M’s significant contributions to adaptive, self-deploying structures aligned with the NASA MIRO IDEAS² Center mission.