Yogi's builds - to boldy glue, where ...

[Retired_for_now]

Still working on the previous, and this one:





Meanwhile, distracted with volunteer work (you wouldn't believe the paperwork required to build a 4-rail Estes rocket launcher and control station for a local school, just to get them to foot about 80% of the cost of materials that went into it - first one's free as a door prize but I have my limits when they want more ...). Still have to finish the local AFA Teacher of the Year writeups for the Congressional Record (very supportive local Congressman).

Yogi

[jparenti]

Originally Posted by Retired_for_now

...and this one...

I'm going to venture a guess: A spacecraft that does something we insist that children not do, particularly during a partial eclipse?

[Paper Kosmonaut]

*puts on dumb face* Looks to me like a space printer cartridge..

(On a more serious note: you just keep rollin' 'em out, don't you, Yogi? Great work!)

[umtutsut]

Originally Posted by jparenti

I'm going to venture a guess: A spacecraft that does something we insist that children not do, particularly during a partial eclipse?

Methinks the man is on to something....
http://lunaf.com/images/sun/solar-dy...bservatory.jpg

Les (Friendly Airplane Asylum & ex-NASA flack)

[Retired_for_now]

Well spotted all. Current events often snag my free-floating attention (though we got lucky and the last big CME missed us - and the electric grid).

Still some work to do - and while 1:24 scale is good for working out the bugs it makes building a display that will fit on a shelf a bit more difficult. Would like to include a solar globe ( Bastelbögen - Westfälische Volkssternwarte und Planetarium Recklinghausen ) on the base with the model. As usual lately, no detailed data other than pre-launch photos, a few artists' renderings, and the always cryptic bits like: "overall length along the sun-pointing axis is 4.5 m, and each side is 2.22 m. The span of the extended solar panels is 6.25 m."







The Solar Dynamics Observatory along with SOHO, STEREO (twin satellites), HINODE, and RHESSI are the only active missions directly imaging the Sun (another group make measurements of the Terrestrial and Solar environment).

From NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ( SDO | Solar Dynamics Observatory ):
"SDO's goal is to understand, driving towards a predictive capability, the solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity's technological systems by determining

how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured

how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance.

SDO will study how solar activity is created and how Space Weather comes from that activity. Measurements of the interior of the Sun, the Sun's magnetic field, the hot plasma of the solar corona, and the irradiance that creates the ionospheres of the planets are our primary data products."

Yogi

[Retired_for_now]

So, who wants to give the SDO a try as a beta build (final product to be donated to your planetarium, classroom, lab, or just displayed wherever your significant other allows ...).
Yogi

[jparenti]

I'll do it! I'm doing instructions for my Huygens build now, so I need a pleasant distraction. Instructions are definitely the most frustrating part of designing a model... :D

[mbauer]

Originally Posted by jparenti

I'll do it! I'm doing instructions for my Huygens build now, so I need a pleasant distraction. Instructions are definitely the most frustrating part of designing a model... :D

Yes, they are!!

Went to a technical writing class at the university back in 2002, it really helps, but not enough!

Photos/graphics seem to work better or a thread like Ken West is doing with his Apollo Cammand model.

Yogi, great lesson on the solar storms. All up here enjoy watching the results!!

Not so much fun when the net doesn't work so great though!

Nice looking model once again- you just keep knocking them out....

Mike

[Retired_for_now]

Thanks, Mike.

A little more work on the Skycrane (or is it a skyhook?) pending input from some enterprising (test)builders. I already noticed the central strut on the radar altimeter outrigger (openwork one on the "front") should be two diagonal struts meeting at the center, not one crossing the trusswork ...






Initial failure to fully consider the impact of thicker card and the larger scale for the aeroshell required some extra strips to cover joints that should fit flush. Solution would have been some judicious trimming and the use of joiner strips for all connections (no tabs, even for nesting conics). Oh well - I learned something.

Still working in 1:24 scale,which will make displaying interesting. Thinking of a mobile (eventually) with the aeroshell on reentry above and to one side - the descent configuration on the other. ???

Yogi

[Retired_for_now]

Downsizing (1:24 all) always slows me down ...





At least things seem to fit fairly well: rover fits inside the footprint; descent stage/rover latches line up (though would need some trimming if intended to be attached); rover camera mast folds down; suspension is deployed (immediate pre-touchdown) rather than folded; sampling arm is fixed in the stowed position; aeroshell scale seems a bit small (printer effect?) or the enroute packaging is amazing; etc.

We'll see.

Yogi