Client: NASA

Description: These animations along with many others were created to show the potential of this joint design. The joint allows for full motion within a 180 degree hemisphere. The benefit of this design is that the cables and fuel lines do not get twisted up. They are simply bent in all directions. This makes them perfect for use as spacecraft thrusters or for solar array orientation. The joint uses three actuators to control the motion. This is a very old animation, but I’m keeping it because the live-fire thruster test is super cool.

What I did: I created some of the models and all of the animation. These seem like simple animations but the first one was actually quite difficult to initially figure out. I had very little information to work with and rigging it was quite tricky. Once I figured out the first one, the other ones were relatively easy to produce.