I am happy to share with you photos of my scratchbuilt 1:24 scale model of the STARDUST comet probe (no I did not also build a model of Wild-2 - my basment isn't big eneough).

I entered it into our local IPMS event on Sep. 30 and took a first place in Space - Historical.

Due to the difficiluty of building the dust catcher, or "catcher's mitt", and the open Sample Return Capsule, I opted to build the capsule closed, as if it was just after launch, or was ready for Earth entry.

The model also lacks the upper thermal shields that stretched from the sides of the bus to the edge of the center solar panel.

I hope you enjoy seeing these.

Rob

Impressive model. I did download the paper model and make it, it doesnt look quite like yours lol.

I also built the paper model, for an exhibit at the local library (masterminded by Linden Sims) to encourage kids to build models. Our exhibit was all spacecraft.

The paper model was very useful to my plastic model becasue I could rescale it and use the paper as patterns. Like the white on black paper solar cells which I switched to black on white and then tweaked for my purposes. After printing them on glossy photo paper, they look great (at least to me!).

Rob

Very nice work, Rob.

It appears Stardust may be headed on some further exploration!

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4646