Viking '75 Mars Lander Construction, Looking for Viking lander design/construction information |
Viking '75 Mars Lander Construction, Looking for Viking lander design/construction information |
May 17 2012, 12:38 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 101 Joined: 3-May 12 From: Massachusetts, USA Member No.: 6392 |
Greetings all! I am searching for detailed construction and design information about the NASA Viking '75 Mars project hardware, particularly for the lander, aeroshell, base cover, and bioshield. Can anyone recommend good sources? I am especially looking for engineering drawings and under-construction photographs.
To set the stage, here is an album of about 100 drawings and photos which I've collected so far. I have already read the "usual" books, such as NASA RP-1027 "Viking '75 Spacecraft Design and Test", the press kits, the scientific papers produced about the mission, a number of industry papers covering various instruments and subsystems, the major Martin Marietta books, etc. I am hoping to find additional sources. Any ideas? Also, does anyone know if there are aeroshell, base cover, or bioshield components lurking in a museum or in storage somewhere? FYI, I have visited three of the best landers still on Earth: The Proof Test Capsule in the Smithsonian NASM, the Flight Capsule 3 (backup) in the Museum of Flight near Seattle, and the Science Test Lander in the Virginia Air and Space Center. I've taken nearly 1,000 photos of the three of them (most of which are publicly available in other Picasa Web albums of mine). I've taken a few measurements, but I would dearly love to find more authoritative drawings of more hardware (interior, exterior, everything). I have begun submitting some Freedom of Information Act requests to NASA/JPL which has started to bear some trivial but kind of fun fruit. --- Update as of March 2017: During the past few years I have been fortunate enough to collect a significant amount of information on the Viking lander hardware. My thanks to a number of organizations for providing me access to their resources:
Flight Capsule 3 in Seattle Museum of Flight (756 photos) Dimensioned diagrams of the FC3 lander PTC Lander at Smithsonian NASM 2013 (466 photos) PTC Lander at Smithsonian NASM 2016 (888 photos) Lander at Virginia Air and Space Center (622 photos) Dimensioned diagrams of the VASC’s lander Lander at California Science Center (456 photos) Dimensioned diagrams of the CSC's lander Misc diagrams, unusual photos (over 350 images) Body assembly blueprints Collector Head Shroud Unit at NASA LaRC (99 photos) Biology instrument at Cleveland MoNH (36 photos) Meteorology Sensor Assembly (60 photos) Meteorology Electronics Assembly (22 photos) Tape Recorder (53 photos) High Gain Antenna photos and measurements (96 images) XRFS Instrument (42 images) Viking lander contractor historic scale model (14 images) My Viking project documents collection The main focus of my efforts during the past few years has been to create an accurate and high-fidelity digital 3D model of the Viking lander. I've chosen to use the SketchUp software to build the model because a near-full-featured free version is available, allowing other people to use my model. The 3D model itself, as a work-in-progress, is available via DropBox. I update that model file periodically as major elements get added. I've created an album containing numerous renderings of digital model components, and I have a YouTube channel with some videos about the modeling project. I have also uploaded the lander core body and the Surface Sampler Collector Head to the SketchUp 3D Warehouse so that other people can easily access those components (the 3D Warehouse can be accessed from within SketchUp, or via web browser). The file on DropBox lister earlier contains those components and others. -- Tom |
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Jun 6 2016, 11:48 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 101 Joined: 3-May 12 From: Massachusetts, USA Member No.: 6392 |
On May 20 I visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC to photograph the Viking lander Proof Test Capsule (PTC), which has recently been undergoing conservation prior to being re-exhibited in the remodeled Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall. Thanks to the very kind assistance of Matthew Shindell, curator in the space history department, and Jessica Bulger of the collections department, I had an hour of special access prior to museum opening. This allowed me to get over and under the lander for detail photography, and include scale references against some components. The result was nearly 900 images I've processed, added descriptions, and uploaded in a new public album.
This was the last time in probably quite a while that 360-degree access will be possible to the Viking PTC due to the new exhibit arrangement that will not allow the "back" (leg 1 area) to be readily seen. For the past few decades the PTC has been exhibited in a very professional glass-walled module, which allowed 360-degree views but mostly through one or two panes of brown-tinted glass. For a short period this spring, including the recent day I was photographing, the lander was removed from that module (which is not being re-used). Thus reflection- and smudge-free images were possible, and I took great advantage of the opportunity - hence the large size of my new album. (During three visits in 2011 and 2012 I acquired about 450 earlier images, some of which suffer from glass artifacts.) Most of the images were taken later on May 20 during normal operating hours, around and between the temporary barriers surrounding the lander. But the early-morning hour with the Smithsonian staff allowed unusual details to be captured, for which I am very grateful! It was a privilege to be granted such access. Thank you Matthew and Jessica. On a related note my on-going project to create a high-fidelity digital 3D model of the Viking lander continues. I decided to try having a commercial 3D print made of some small parts, for fun. I had to choose something which I had already modeled (of course!), which had a minimum wall thickness large enough to be within the printing capability (which eliminates some parts, even at full scale), and which was not cost-prohibitively large. I chose to print one of the guide roller assemblies that interfaced between the lander and its Base Cover guide rails: The vendor I chose (partly based on materials and print technology availability) is i.materialize based in Belgium. As can be seen in the image there are three wheels, which spin nicely on their (separately printed) axles. The faceting visible in the curved rollers is how the digital model was designed, for simplicity. The axles have 0.02-in (wide and deep) grooves near their ends for retaining clips, which printed satisfactorily. The wheels and axles were printed in "prime gray" and the body was printed in "high detail resin". |
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