1/24 Voyager spacecraft 3D print and scratch build

[3DImpact]

On a bit of a diversion from my usual Star Wars studio scale work these days I recently accepted a commission from a colleague to build a model of the Voyager spacecraft. He was looking to gift a Voyager model to another colleague but the 1/24 RealSpace Models versions are all sold out and impossible to find on the immediate timeframe needed and the 1/48 Hasagawa versions that are readily available seemed a bit too small. So, off to the NASA 3D model library and time to model and 3D print!

I always check against photo reference of course (although I knew in this case I didn't have the time to be really picky about the details).

You can make anything at home these days!

The very long and delicate magnetometer boom would probably sag over time so I ran a brass tube through it and nested it into a larger brass tube near the deploy end in order to make it removable for transport and storage.

And, finally done!

Dan

 

[wayouteast]

Fantastic work!

 

[crackerjazz]

That's some beautiful work!!! : )

 

[JediMichael]

I was totally expecting Star Trek Voyager.
But thats a cool little project, and something different.
Funny and cool how this guy, along with its brother.....(or sister??) are the farthest man made object away from us.

 

[Bjorn]

I love it.
Well done!

 

[publiusr]

Cassini next?

 

[srspicer]

Great job!!
How do you like working with the Photon Mono printer?

 

[3DImpact]

Thanks! So, the 'real' space stuff is a bit of a busman's holiday for me - it's what I do for my day job so I tend to play in the Star Wars sandbox here for escapist fun. That said, this was a fun project and after it was all done I kinda thought it might be nice to have one for myself. But no, I've got enough other Star Wars things to do!

But for fun background here an ancient picture of a much younger me from grad school days behind the scenes in Optical Navigation at JPL during the Voyager II encounter at Neptune in 1989 (if you look carefully we timed the photo to be snapped at the moment the Neptune closest approach count down clock hit 0):

I was an associate on the Galileo imaging team at Jupiter (but I was in it for the asteroid encounters), I'm presently on the DART investigation team (we just very successfully whacked an asteroid!), and I played some minor roles in the New Horizons mission to Pluto (you can see my 3D modeling of the spacecraft here: New Horizons)

The Photon Mono X is a great printer and I can't imagine not having it! Well, they do have some newer printers and there's aeven a Halloween sale going on for their 6K printer that I think kinda takes the place of the Mono X right now. But yeah, if you're contemplating getting one do absolutely do it! The prices have really come down, they're really not that difficult to use, and they will transform your modeling capability - there's nothing you can't model at home these days!

Dan

 

[publiusr]

View attachment 1628075
I'm presently on the DART investigation team (we just very successfully whacked an asteroid!),

A theory on the overperformance:

Could the rubble pile have acted a bit like a non-Newtonian substance? It had billions of years to settle, with perhaps gravity gradient allowing particles to perhaps point towards the larger body.

DART impacted this alignment from the side…and what resulted was less a rifle shot than a contrecoup concussion. A pulse rebounded back towards the wound…the entry and exit wound being the same disturbed area giving a rocket effect.

Your model making skills might result in funding for interstellar probe…say, build a nice Block 2 SLS with an NTR upper stage and NEP probe.

Send to Congress.

Sell it as catching up to Ouamuamua. The first probe to an object from another star system…and have Avi talk all that alien crap when we just want a core sample.

This way, the Interstellar precursor probe will move even faster with NTR thumping out of Earth-Moon so the NEP can really stretch its legs—a two-get for nuke advocates. Let Musk have the inner system—and hydrolox rides go for deep space.

*************************************

Something else I have been meaning to talk to a space expert like yourself…since I am a dilettante at best:

We have all heard of solar sails and statites.

But I was wondering if two large solar sails might be tethered to a surface such that the cables cross each other in a letter “X” configuration…with perhaps a flying windlass at the intersection looking something like this:

Hypervelocity Tether Rockets

A blog dedicated to helping Science Fiction authors create and discuss worlds where a realistic setting can still serve the fiction.

toughsf.blogspot.com

That might have its own tether.

The idea is that—by simply having the two sails tack towards or away from each other, the intersection of the “X” can be raised or lowered…allowing an object to be picked up off a surface and pulled into space using the pressure of sunlight alone—-and pure Archimedean type principles.

Perhaps doable on smaller bodies, or those closer to our closest star for “Sunlifter” to do its work?

Or am I just an idiot for proposing such a thing?

 

[Hunk a Junk]

You should design up a "Voyager 6" nameplate with maybe some mock museum text about the tragedy of it disappearing into a black hole and sell the files as a Star Trek kit. It you wanted to go a step further, you could design a base for lighting and sell it as V'ger.

 

[Bjorn]

Thanks! So, the 'real' space stuff is a bit of a busman's holiday for me - it's what I do for my day job so I tend to play in the Star Wars sandbox here for escapist fun. That said, this was a fun project and after it was all done I kinda thought it might be nice to have one for myself. But no, I've got enough other Star Wars things to do!

But for fun background here an ancient picture of a much younger me from grad school days behind the scenes in Optical Navigation at JPL during the Voyager II encounter at Neptune in 1989 (if you look carefully we timed the photo to be snapped at the moment the Neptune closest approach count down clock hit 0):

View attachment 1628075

I was an associate on the Galileo imaging team at Jupiter (but I was in it for the asteroid encounters), I'm presently on the DART investigation team (we just very successfully whacked an asteroid!), and I played some minor roles in the New Horizons mission to Pluto (you can see my 3D modeling of the spacecraft here: New Horizons)

The Photon Mono X is a great printer and I can't imagine not having it! Well, they do have some newer printers and there's aeven a Halloween sale going on for their 6K printer that I think kinda takes the place of the Mono X right now. But yeah, if you're contemplating getting one do absolutely do it! The prices have really come down, they're really not that difficult to use, and they will transform your modeling capability - there's nothing you can't model at home these days!

Dan

That's an impressive body of work Dan. I'm a bit younger than yourself and the Voyager missions were really exciting for me as a boy dreaming of space travel. What a cracker of a photo!

Congrats on the DART mission by the way.

 

[mostly engineer]

Beautiful model, amazing job, and thanks for the tip with the NSAS 3d library, hope they have Mercury and Gemini models too.

Thanks, Mario