Abstract
Coiled deployable booms have seen a wide variety of uses both in space and terrestrial applications. CubeSail, a solar sailing mission at the Surrey Space Centre, uses coiled deployable booms to extend and give structure to its thin film sail. During deployment testing a problem was found where the coiled boom would unwrap or "blossom" within the deployer instead of deploying the sails. During an investigation into this blossoming problem it was found that a coiled tape spring could act as a spring in tension or compression; this paper aims to describe this phenomenon.