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1/24 Cassini-Huygens Deep Space Probe


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Hi guys,  as you may not be aware (especially those who aren't on Facebook), Space Cadet Models is producing a 1/24 Cassini-Huygens unmanned probe.  Scott Brotherton and Karl Doddenhoff spent years developing this kit.  It's the product of their blood, sweat and tears.   I joined the party late so pretty much all the parts are done.    There are just some parts that still need to be printed to make more kits and I wanted to post some printing progress shots and also assemble one in Solidworks to whet your appetites : )   

 

If I can describe the model in one word, it's MAJESTIC!   I normally reserve that description for the 5-foot Millennium Falcon but this is really a beautiful model.   It's more than a foot long and it's a multi-media kit with resin parts, PE, metal rods, plastic-coated rods, vacuum-formed and 3D printed parts.  I wasn't really interested at first because I'm not really a big fan of models with solar panels (because I find them hard to replicate).   And because like most everyone else I like building models of powerful jets and other war machines.  One day Karl emailed me about the Cassini --  "It's enormous.  It's gigantic.  It's ginormous!   Cassini was the last of what they called the "Flagship" planetary probes.  Read:  big & expensive.  They really pulled out all the stops.  They used all the lessons learned from the Mariners and Voyages and really all the previous JPL planetary probes and rolled it all into Cassini.  It was the size of a Winnebago camper.  Cost billions of bucks.  Needed a big Titan rocket to launch it.  The mission lasted decades.  IMO it was like the last Hurrah for really big expensive outer planetary probes.  It was immensely successful."   That got me googling up about the Cassini and reading up on it.  And there was something about its shape that just captivated me.   It looked like some high-tech bug in space.   And it didn't have solar panels : )

 

Here I'll be putting together Scott's step files for the most part but where step files aren't available like for the PE and vacuum-formed parts I'll just try to redraw them for purposes of assembling the kit virtually and we'll see what the kit looks like in Solidworks form.   Can't wait to see that myself -- so here goes nothing : ) 

 

The Cassini is powered by three of these RTGs or radioisotope thermal generators.  I thought these were nuclear reactors like on Dr Brown's Delorean : )    But I read from this article  that "RTGs are not nuclear reactors and have no moving parts. They use neither fission nor fusion processes to produce energy. Instead, they provide power through the natural radioactive decay of plutonium (mostly Pu-238, a non-weapons-grade isotope)"

 

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I tried experimenting printing out the RTG with fins at 0.2mm thickness and they came out great but the kit will come with photo-etch fins so get ready for some PE fun : )

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Bare RTG bodies waiting for some PE love : )

 

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This is what the built-up RTGs will look like.   I printed the greeblies together with the bodies but they'll really be separate parts on the model.

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Tracy, Manfred, Cloud in the Wind, thanks, guys!  : )    

 

Got some more printing to do... 

 

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And back to the virtual assembly...   This is an in-flight model so a lot of the hull will be covered in foil  : )

 

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Maybe I shouldn't have shown the RTGs in the assembly because they go on much farther down into the build, but I couldn't wait to see how they look in context to the whole thing.

 

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