Last 4th of July NASA's spacecraft Juno reached Jupiter's orbit, breaking the world record of Fastest spacecraft at a whooping 265,000 km/h. During its journey, it also broke the record of Most distant solar-powered spacecraft, previously achieved by ESA's Rosetta probe at 791,000 km from the Sun.
So I thought the little prove deserved a place in my desk, using my own 3D printer. If you don't have a 3D printer, NASA offers a paper model with detailed instructions on how to assamble it, along with more models of other spacecraft.
NASA also offers 3D models of most of its spacecraft in stl format, from where I originally took the files for this project, which I later split for easier 3D print. After that, I uploaded my modified files to Thingiverse. You can download them here.
NOTE: I used 0.06mm layer height to print all the parts, though it's not necessary for the solar panels (2mm layer height should be enough for them).
The 1/58 is the maximum scale size for my Prusa i3 Hephestos. First of all, I printed the upper and bottom parts of the spacecraft and glued them together:
You may want to be careful when aligning the parts and glueing because with such smooth surfaces the glue dries really fast and you have little time to adjust and align the two halves.
After that, print the high gain antenna, and warp aluminum foil around it, with the shiny side facing the the printed part (dull side outward), as it looks more similar to MLI (multi-layer insulation)* that covers the Juno's high gain antenna, as seen in this picture:
Oh, and don't forget draw the same pattern on it with an indelible pen:
And next we shall go to print the solar panels. Updates soon!
*MLI insulation only shields from thermal losses due to radiation. As in space there is no air to conduct the heat, the only heat losses (or, when facing the sun directly, heat sources) are due to thermal radiation!
Usually layers of stronger materials are also placed between insulation layers to protect the spacecraft from micro-collisions with dust particles.
