Dawn, now at the world, Ceres

**umtutsut** · #1 03-14-2015, 03:20 PM

(Apologies to Bad Astronomer Phil Plait for stealing his atrocious pun....

)

A couple WIP shots of my Dawn spacecraft. I reduced Shawn Kirchdorfer's 1/25 model to 1/32 for shelf space reasons. Shown is the back of the spacecraft; the big box is the Visual and Infrared Spectrometer (VIR). Most of the spacecraft is covered in black thermal protection. One of the finished solar panels is at the bottom of the first pic.

I've also included a couple pix of the real deal. If anyone's interested in doing their own build, I'll be glad to share the 20+ reference pix I found.

Stay tooned....

Les (The Voice of Authority -- VoiceofAuthority.net - The Voice Stylings of Les Dorr, Jr.)

**mspacemike** · #2 03-15-2015, 06:29 AM

Yes, very interested in the reference pics. Right now, Dawn is on my watch list.

Michael

**umtutsut** · #3 04-05-2015, 08:01 AM

More progress. Close to the finish now, but I still have to work out the position of a few small parts. IMO, the instructions are a bit sketchy for such a detailed model. Note the high-gain antenna is covered with a shield on the real deal.

To hold the solar arrays, I decided to grind slots in a couple pieces of square aluminum tubing. It's overscale, and doesn't look like the real array arms, but I'm convinced they won't sag.

Also posting a couple more pix of the real thing. I'll post pix of the finished model soon (I hope).

Les (THe Voice of Authority -- VoiceofAuthority.net - The Voice Stylings of Les Dorr, Jr.)

**sreinmann** · #4 04-06-2015, 09:06 AM

Looks good Les, Did you use cardboard for the interior of your arrays?

**umtutsut** · #5 04-06-2015, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sreinmann

Looks good Les, Did you use cardboard for the interior of your arrays?

IIRC, I used a stiffer-than-usual cereal box cardboard.

Les (The Voice of Authority -- www.voiceofauthority.net)

**umtutsut** · #6 04-23-2015, 06:29 PM

And now for the big finish....

The detail on the model is excellent, especially if you want to build an educational-type model that shows the science instruments and other hardware without the black thermal covering of the real spacecraft. There are a lot of small parts, and these could benefits from better instructions; that's the only issue I had with the kit.

Dawn is currently orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres, looping in to its initial science orbit 8400 miles above the surface.

Comments welcome, as always!

Les (The Voice of Authority -- VoiceofAuthority.net - The Voice Stylings of Les Dorr, Jr.)

**Todd Woodward** · #7 04-23-2015, 06:46 PM

Nice build. I'm currently working on Dawn, while I'm waiting for some supplies to arrive in order to finish Voyager. I also bashed out a New Horizons, that I hope to redo in the future with more detail.

I'm trying to keep up with current and relevant robotic missions.

Noting that the high gain antenna on Dawn is actually covered was great, so I'll be sure to cover mine. Thanks for that!

What material did you use for the black foil?

**Retired_for_now** · #8 04-23-2015, 07:13 PM

More kudos! Well done with the detailing. Nice to see how all the various inputs come together to produce the final model.
Which museum will be hosting the display?
Yogi

**sreinmann** · #9 04-23-2015, 07:48 PM

Nice! I love that you pointed out the value of the uncovered verses the realistic that you've done. Its a great build! Thanks for sharing.

**umtutsut** · #10 04-24-2015, 07:57 AM

A bit better pic....

Les (The Voice of Authority -- VoiceofAuthority.net - The Voice Stylings of Les Dorr, Jr.)