My 1:25 DAWN spacecraft mod

[kirch66]

My recent Juno build inspired me to go back and re-invent the NASA DAWN model so it had more instrument detail like the JUNO model does.

I've been redesigning the DAWN instrument package and panels for this model for the last few weeks from photos and diagrams. There are so many conflicting images for colors online, so where I couldn't get an accurate image of the flight version of an instrument package, I used the NASA model version for coloring.

I used MS Visio to map out the parts to scale. I couldn't find a scale listed for the NASA model version, so I just used Visio's scaling option to make my scale at 1:25.

I have finally gotten to the point where I could start printing and building the thing, and so far it's going pretty nicely. Several parts are pretty small so this is definitely not a model for meat-hands!

I just started building this yesterday and so far I've only had to correct a couple of size issues on certain parts that I made size calculation errors on. Now they fit. But all in all ewverything is fitting according to plan. It's looking pretty cool too! :D

Here are a couple of pics so far of my DAWN model re-imagining (mod).

These photos show only some of the top deck instruments: Low gain antenna (pyramid-looking thing), GRaND (copper box), Gyros (center gridded "box"), Course Sun Sensors (x4 CSS stalks), two Reaction Wheels, and the high gain antenna mount on the side.

I haven't finished with the instruments on the top deck yet. I still have the two Star Trackers, and two Framing Cameras to add. I'll post more when I add them.

The next parts will be the Bottom Deck: low gain antenna, payload adapter ring, RCS Thrusters, x4 CSS, and the IPS bottom thruster. Then the Front side: High Gain antenna, and the fore IPS thruster. Then the Back side: VIR (Visible and IR mapping spectrometer) and the aft IPS thruster. And finally the Left and Right sides: Vents and Solar Arrays.

[Gideon]

Wow! Looking really nice so far! Lots of fiddly bits to be sure. I don't have meat hands, but I do suffer from the shakiest hands I know of... which may also make it difficult.

[kirch66]

I have to hold my breath for some of these little parts. I've also gone through and modified some of my drawings on this one. I realized that some of the parts were just way too detailed and tiny to be usable. So I combined some parts into one larger piece. You can see this with the Framing Cameras (yellow tall skinny grates in the top edge). The bases were two parts originally, which was a pain to build and stick together, and the size differences weren't great enough to even really be noticed, so I combined them into one box which appears to be two stacked on top of each other. This simplified this part a little. But I left one original and the other the new design, so you can see both if you look really close.

So now I have Mounted the High Gain Antenna to the Front and added the Framing Cameras and the Star Trackers, to the top deck. This completes the Top Deck.

[kirch66]

I added the modified side panels which had "dawgs" sticking up on the top and bottom corners, which the original didn't have. And I made the vents thin-depth boxes which are more like the real vent structures. I also recolored the entire spacecraft sides to remove the yellow colors which aren't present on the real spacecraft. The pictures I have show the vents as silver/aluminum colored.

As you can also see I changed the HG antenna to dark grey, which is more like the color on the actual craft, instead of white-ish as on the original model.

It's coming along nicely! I'm gauging how difficult things are to build and modifying them as needed so this isn't a tour de force build but still retains the details to make this an interesting model visually.

Your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[kirch66]

Now on the to the Bottom Deck....

[Retired_for_now]

Very nicely done! Beats the heck out of the extra little boxes I added last time I built this one.
Yogi

[kirch66]

Here is a photo of the original DAWN spacecraft model which I downloaded from the NASA website. This is the model that started it all for me. I am the President of the Fort Worth Astronomical Society and I also facilitate our Young Astronomers group for the young members of our club. We were having a coordinated event with the local Science and History museum for the Vesta arrival last year, so I wanted some visual aids to help explain what the DAWN mission was about. So I built the model and have used it several times since at public events. I have scale models of the first 10 discovered asteroids which include Ceres and Vesta that are scaled to a 1 meter diameter vinyl poster of the Earth and a photo of the Moon. So I use the model to help talk about exploration and stuff to get people interested in astronomy as a hobby.

Here are a couple of photos of the model. One is on my shelf with several of my scale models of some of the planets.

On top, Mercury and Mars are in front of the DAWN model. The Moon and Earth are on the right. And on the lower shelf you see the second model (it's been modified to add more detail) which I built, New Horizons. Pluto, it's moon Charon are the tan balls in the center of the shelf, and the littel gray ball near Pluto/Charon is the asteroid Ceres. All of the planets are to scale with each other. The relief in the background is a sculture I did of a section of the Moon's surface which I use to explain shadows for observing the Moon by shining a flashlight at different angles.

Anyhow, I use these models all the time, and am wanting to build more. I have posted some pics in a different thread of my latest JUNO model in preparation for it's arrival at Jupiter in 2015.

I love how these models bring people into the sphere of knowledge of space. Having these at public events has proven to be very useful. We had mine and another club member's paper models of the Apollo Command Module and LEM out at our Moon Day event this and last July at a local flight museum.

[kirch66]

Originally Posted by Retired_for_now

Very nicely done! Beats the heck out of the extra little boxes I added last time I built this one.
Yogi

Thank you very much! That means a lot!

[Retired_for_now]

When you're ready for a real head-scratcher, try these:
world maps with constant-scale natural boundaries - cut 'n' fold items on the right side of the page.

Build out nicely and they are actually not that difficult (if taken slowly and carefully).

Yogi

[kirch66]

Here are our tables at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Tx. They have a huge Moon Day event to celebrate the landing on the Moon in 1969 each July. They have Apollo 7 command capsule on display there and Astronaut Walt Cunningham is one of the founders. Lots of groups show up and tons of people come to it each year.

Anyhow, here is a picture of our table with several models we use on it. The Dawn spacecraft is near the center with the black felt and the asteroids. My fellow club member Jim Murray built the two Apollo models shown. I think he said he blew up the LEM model to double the original model size.

I built the DAWN and scaled planet models. The New Horizons model is hidden behind Mars in this pic.