Kuiper Belt explorer (1/350 scale)

[frank2056]

Inspired by nönöbär's recent Reban models, I decided to dust off a couple of spacecraft models  I printed almost 4 years ago. The results weren't great, so they went on the shelf. The first model was a late 21st or early 22nd century Mars or Titan lander, inspired by the artwork in this Hackaday article:





I shot some primer on the model and it showed without a doubt that it'll require a new print, so it went on the -one step-from-the-trash shelf.

The second model is of a late 21st - 22nd century Pluto and Kuiper belt explorer. This model is based on a dream of spaceship like this, resting on the surface of Pluto's moon, Charon. The round blobs on the side are observation domes for the crew:



This is a view of the docking/sensor/cargo bay area at the top. The smaller airlocks are about the height of a human:



The engine section. The main, central engine should be familiar to anyone with a Leif Ericson kit. I just used it as an inspiration for this design (and "borrowed" some of the details from the 3D files I used to make the kit engines for Round2):



Here are the main components on the bench today . The upper section (with the antenna and windows) is removable and so is the engine section:



Here's the stack. I rearranged the short ring and now it's between the crew section and the engine/fuel section. Note the astronaut in front of one of the landing legs.



Closeup - the astronaut was painted with a quick swipe of a paint pen. The pads have a copper wire acting as a hinge:



I've primed and painted it (aluminum with some black paint, which gives it a dark metallic color) and the finish is just OK - if the fit or finish had been just slightly worse, I would have re-printed it. As it is, it's good enough to sit at the back of the shelf. I should finish this this week or next.

[PFJN]

Cool, interested in seeing more 

[NARSES2]

Cool, interested in seeing more 

As am I they do look good 

[frank2056]

Thanks, guys. It's mostly painted now and I'm just waiting for the parts to dry. Here's the top level crew/cargo/docking section:



I used some Tamiya interference film for the windows and one sensor.

[Old Wombat]

That's looking better!

[buzzbomb]

Nice work there 

[frank2056]

I'm declaring this one finished. I thought about lighting it, but the quality just isn't there.

The optical communications dish is painted with Molotow chrome paint. You can see an astronaut just above the dish for scale:



I cut some styrene sheets to act as deployable heat radiators. It always bugs me that large spacecraft don't show a way of radiating excess heat, regardless of how advanced the technology is. As a famous engineer once said (will say?), "Ye Cannae Change The Laws Of Physics" :



The year and month I finished this. Also, assume that the cargo door for transferring crew and equipment to the surface is one of the gray rectangles under one of the radiators:



Top view:


Engine end. I didn't add nozzles because they didn't look all that great on the physical model:



Thanks for following along! I'm glad I was able to get this off my shelf o' doom.

[Rick Lowe]

 

[zenrat]

Noice.

 

[Weaver]

That looks good, and very credible - nice one!

I cut some styrene sheets to act as deployable heat radiators. It always bugs me that large spacecraft don't show a way of radiating excess heat, regardless of how advanced the technology is. As a famous engineer once said (will say?), "Ye Cannae Change The Laws Of Physics" :

PREACH!

It's always struck me that the ideal arrangement for something you can assemble in space is to have steerable panels with solar arrays on one side and radiators on the other. By definition, the ideal direction in which to radiate heat is directly away from the sun. Of course, how complicated the joint is depends on the cooling technology. Making it all fold for launch from the surface as well is probably too much complexity.

[NARSES2]

Excellent sir 

[frank2056]

Thanks, guys - it came out better than I expected.

Harold - I was enough of a nerd to calculate how much heat the panels would radiate. At 300K (27C) about 124 kW. If we up the temperature to 400K (127C) they would radiate 390kW. The ISS rejects/radiates 70kW from its panels (at around 70C).

I figure that the crew would adjust the radiators (or fold them down) depending on where they land. You wouldn't want to vaporize the frozen nitrogen right under the spacecraft!