1/48 LCROSS-CENTAUR

Gallery Article by Les Dorr, Jr on Oct 9 2010

  2010 Anniversary of original mission 

 

You may remember the October 2009 NASA mission that first released the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) onto a moonbound trajectory, then deliberately crashed the Centaur stage into the crater Cabeus on October 9 while the LCROSS shepherding satellite imaged the impact to search for traces of water at the Moon's south pole. The media rather sensationalized the mission, all too frequently tagging it with headlines such as "NASA BOMBS THE MOON!"

Here's my 1/48 LCROSS-Centaur model. Starting with a card model designed by John "Yogi" Jogerst, I added many scratchbuilt parts made from plastic rod and strip, tape, stuff from the spares box and even Sculpy (!) to the basic model.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

Most of the LCROSS satellite is covered with gold foil.  The white panels are vinyl tape. Note the conical structure at the top.  Most illustrations show the LCROSS without this part that mated to the LRO, but my study of pre-launch pix suggests it was firmly bolted to the satellite.

For the business end of the Centaur, I used a 1/144 J-2 engine from the Airfix Saturn V kit.  It may be somewhat undersized, but captures the look of the real deal, which is what I was shooting for. 

Many card model rockets and spacecraft are available on the web. You can either build them OOB -- can a card model have a "box?" -- or use them as a basis for additional detailing as I do. One of the best sites for such models is the Lower Hudson Valley Challenger Center: http://jleslie48.com/

Les Dorr, Jr

Photos and text © by Les Dorr, Jr