Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #9

One SRM down, one to go. The Solid Rocket Motor was a great and straightforward build. I mainly used CA (super glue) and that made it a bit risky. It was however, the quickest and easiest way to get the hull together. PVA and Aleene's tacky glue I have hardly do a well enough job in this case. Anyway, it worked.

I created a lot of details using other paper, and built in a rod (plastic, okay) for positioning the stack on a pedestal later on. The second SRM will be on its way this week.

A notable different thing compared to the shuttle SRB's are the long red tanks alongside these solids. They were used for thrust vectoring, steering the rocket by changing the direction of the rockets' exhaust flow. Thus the rocket could roll, pitch and yaw more easily. The tanks contained a liquid that was inserted right into the stream of the exhaust gases. This made the flow change its direction. Nowadays, the engine bells of the solid rocket motors can rotate on their horizontal axis. The nozzles are skewed cones that thus have a 'natural' offset in relation to the rocket. By rotating them, the exhaust flow automatically goes slightly in another direction. The method used in the UA-1205, which was the name of the Titan's booster type, was quite advanced for its time but was soon replaced by the rotating nozzle method. The successor of the Titan III, the aptly named Titan 4, flew with boosters more like the STS ones.

Back to the build. The nose cone of the shroud also was finished. Took a couple of tries. For the best, because the third one was bang on. After cutting and glueing to the rest of the fairing, it hardly showed a seam and with a small magnet in the nose it closes up brilliantly. It just needs a small strip over the edge of the seam.

Here are some pictures. More after the break, as usual.

Finally, it starts to look like the actual rocket, now.

Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #8

Okay, so the Voyager probe is finished. It took me longer than expected but that is only because my work just is quite intensive and leaves me with little energy to come home and do some modelling.

All trusswork on the little machine was made from pins. Lots of cutting, measuring and recutting. In the end it is a fairly good rendition of Voyager in 1/96, in my humble opinion.

It fits well on the kick motor and on the Centaur, it fits perfectly inside the fairing and just the top of the High Gain Antenna protrudes out of the cylindrical part into the cone.

The cone is in the works now. More of that later this weekend, I hope. Also, I hope to get work started on the SRM's. It's time this model gets finished and starts collecting dust on the shelves. Still, it will stay quite busy for some time coming, there's still a lot of work to be done for the film we're making and there is going to be a support film going with it which has to be completely edited yet. besides that, we're working on a next film and we have one in pre-production which we have to take some care of, too. So I work on models when I can, but that may not be as frequent as I would like. Luckily, I love my job!

Here's some pictures of Voyager finished.

Instrument arms folded up for stacking. HGA struts were painted white after this picture.

Two legends nose to nose

Today two legends met again nose to nose outside one of the worlds's greatest museums. The soon departing Enterprise gave away her place in the Udvar Hazy center of the NASM in Washington DC to her sister shuttle Discovery. Discovery was flown out there from KSC on the back of '905, the oldest of the two shuttle carrier aircraft, which also flew Enterprise's ALT (approach and landing test) missions in the mid-seventies.
An impressive sight, seeing those pictures of the shuttle over Washington, over the Mall and the civil airport. And Discovery has an impressive service record. An icon on its way to a museum.

The pristine white colour of Enterprise clearly contrasts with the grimy appearance of her younger sister.

After the meeting on the runway, Discovery was brought into the hall while Enterprise now awaits being hoisted on the back of ol' '905 to fly to New York. Next in line of delivery will be Endeavour, which will go to California. Atlantis will stay in Florida, on her launch grounds to be displayed there. NASA has put up a lot of very nice hi-res pics of the event on their Flickr site, great and full of details. I feel a nice diorama coming up... somewhere in the near future, that is.

Of course all of 'Merica is crying over the event like little kids because many uninformed folks think the retirement of the shuttles was much too soon and bla bla bla. Even more educated people agree on that. Even on NasaSpaceFlight there are busloads of them. No one seems to understand the necessity of the retirement of those thirty year old vehicles. And though I do admire the U.S.'s desire to preserve the fleet like they are now, after the loss of two of the fleet's shuttles, why would they still like to see the rest to continue flying? That would have been a very bad idea, in my humble opinion.

Okay, I now know Americans tear up very easily. It's a part of their national identity. But I seriously doubt their common sense now and then. I even read some of them didn't even know shuttles were transported cross country on those two special modified 747's. Oh well.
 The three remaining shuttles now are museum material and will never fly again. Next to the Spirit of St. Louis, Apollo 11, the Wright Flyer, Gemini 4, Freedom 7 and all those other brilliant flying machines, legends in their own right, the shuttles now will rest and share their magnificent career with the rest of the world.

Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #7

I managed to finish part one of the structures around the main bus part of Voyager. The Radio-isotope Thermo-electric Generator sits at the end of a tubular structure extending from the main bus. I first thought this would be almost impossible to make, being this small. However, it was worth a try. I used pins for the structure and glued them together with CA. It still needs a little dab of paint but the general looks are good. 

I have added the RTG and the High Gain Antenna dish and the probe is starting to look the part, if I may say so. Tiny stuff, so the pics are big this time. Click 'em up for the better view.

More after the break.

Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #6

Today was one of those days again. Nothing worked, everything, every little piece of paper I touched became smudged, glue on my fingers, seams wouldn't stay glued together or stuff came out of the printer wrong. It just wasn't my day. Luckily at work we made some progress. Good edits, a little emotional moment and the right pictorial stuff to go with the story.

However, yesterday there was some small progress. Small, in all senses of the word. Six pics to go with that.

Voyager becomes detailed.

Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #5

My research was at a dead end, I couldn't find a decent picture of how Voyager and its kick motor were attached to the Centaur. Luckily, some people know their ways into some places on the internets better than I do. I got help from John Jogerst, who found a drawing on which clearly is shown that the top part of the Centaur looked entirely different than what I was working on.

Apparently it just has a conical frustum that connects to the star kick motor. I carefully cut off the top I had and replaced it with the new stuff. 

That looks good.

Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #4

Not so much the Titan itself, more its payload in this case. The Centaur actually is a part of the payload, too, strictly speaking but the real payload of course was the Voyager deep space probe. This stack was launched on two occasions, first up was Voyager 2 on the 20th of August 1977 and a couple of days later, the 5th of September, Voyager 1 followed. Although launched later, due to its different trajectory, Voyager 1 reached Jupiter long before its twin did.

Both were pushed into the right direction by the Centaur but they were given a last little kick by the thing I built today. The Voyagers were placed on top of a little solid rocket called a Star 26 "kick motor", which accelerated  the probes just a little more. Enough to reach all their destinations and continue to this day, although contact is hardly an option any more, with them being so far away.

Kick it.

The kick motor was very easy to make, it's a design by John Jogerst but I -as usual- tweaked it a little. All the stringers were added and the paper reaction control thrusters were replaced with metal ones. Together with some paint and beads for the fuel tank it now is ready to be mounted on the Centaur. But... I still have to figure out where and how the motor was placed. Suggestions are welcome! There are a couple more pictures after the break.

Paper Kosmonaut's paper

Being Paper Kosmonaut I mostly work with paper in my models, but not exclusively. 

I am not a purist, so quite often the paper is accompanied by small pieces of brass, other metals or sometimes even plastic, although I try to avoid the last stuff. Most of the time it's not necessary to use it.

A question on the Papermodelers forum about kinds of paper triggered me to tell a bit more about the materials I like to work with.

Coloured paper in PK's Bauplatz.

Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #3

I never seem to be able to just do a build out of the box, so to speak, even if it's a testbuild. I recently made John Jogerst's version of the Sky Crane that will put Curiosity on Mars' surface. It was a 1/24 kit, which I did in 1/48 and I changed something on the engines. Although the kit was built in a pretty straightforward manner, I just had to tinker with it. I guess it's how I do things.

With this Titan IIIe, it's the same story. Mark's parts are good if not great, and yet I still have this need to do it my way and just use his parts as a template or sometimes even just as a guide. I hope he doesn't mind. The rocket slowly starts to come together. Stage one has been finished, all the parts are on, and the engines are nicely detailed. More after the break, as usual.

Titan IIIe "Voyager" 1/96 #2

Although I had a lot to do, there was still plenty of time to fiddle, tinker and work on the Titan's stages. I finished the second stage a while ago, the boat tail which widens the fuselage was added and a custom made ring on top was made. This ring will hold the upper stage, the Centaur D-1T, in place. I also figured out how to make the fairing that goes over this stage and the payload.

Stage 2 and upper stage Centaur D-1T