Thread: Contour 1/24
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Old 11-16-2010, 09:02 AM
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Contour 1/24

You've probably run across the model of the Comet Nucleus Tour spacecraft that is (was?) available on the web. Unfortunately, it lacks a lot of detail for someone who wants to represent parts in more realistic detail.
Combing through the Yahoo Space Modelers group archives and a cache of reference photos of my own, I made an attempt to give this spacecraft a little more justice. Scott Brotherton, a member over there, shared with me the files he had created of the nine solar panels to use in his scratchbuild model, so I can't take credit for the graphics on the panels (which is excellent).
As you may know, the real article was destroyed in 2002 after it fired its solid rocket motor and was never heard from again.
The real thing:



The model:











Sans CRISP imager (just a hole in the bus right now), an umbilical panel or so that I drew after I built the first draft, and the solid rocket motor nozzle. I'd really like to make the motor removable to show some detail, but it requires a lot of conic sections that I haven't had much opportunity to draw yet. Same with the imager -- it really needs a complex shape but I haven't decided what will provide it realistically yet. Still, it's a start toward what I intended to do with the panels long ago when Mr. Brotherton shared them with me. (His model, pics of which are in the Yahoo group's photo archive, is much better.) :D
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