Emily Lakdawalla • Jan 17, 2012
The Dawn spacecraft, modeled in an unlikely medium
Last week when I joined the new weekly Space Hangout (a webcast video conference call of sorts), I realized I would need a 3D model of Dawn in order to explain what's going on with the mission right now. I quickly folded a little paper box and labeled it to show how the high-gain antenna points in one direction while the GRaND neutron detector is on a different face of the spacecraft. It did the job, but it wasn't exactly up to my usual standard for illustrations.
I've often wished I had handy models of spacecraft and thought about making a better one. But in what medium? Paper isn't very good (especially in my household with two young kids), since it's so fragile. Then, suddenly, I had the answer: plastic canvas. Plastic canvas is like plastic graph paper, and can be cut to size; it's assembled with yarn and needle, using needlepoint stitches. Unlike knitting or crochet (which I have done to represent a spacecraft before), plastic canvas is a medium that is excellent for representing hard-edged objects, and also excellent for making things to precise dimensions. After a fun weekend of work and a lot of time spent with Eyes on the Solar System viewing Dawn from many different directions, I'm quite pleased with the result, if I do say so myself. Presenting: the Dawn spacecraft, rendered at 1:50 scale in plastic canvas. This view contains the dish-shaped high-gain antenna and shows the side of the solar panels with the solar cells. One of the three ion engines projects forward below the high-gain antenna. The black lump above and left is the low-gain antenna, and the little gold thing above the HGA is GRaND.
![Dawn, worked in needlepoint on plastic canvas, solar panels up](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_1200x888_crop_center-center_82_line/20140729_plasticcanvas_dawn_1.jpg 1200w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_768x568_crop_center-center_82_line/20140729_plasticcanvas_dawn_1.jpg 768w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_576x426_crop_center-center_82_line/20140729_plasticcanvas_dawn_1.jpg 576w)
Here's another view, showing the back of the solar panels and the science instruments. GRaND is at the upper left corner; on the lower face are VIR and the twin Framing Cameras. The last view shows how the solar panels swivel (I used a piece of coat hanger wire inside the panels and through the body as the swivel).
![Dawn, worked in needlepoint on plastic canvas, instrument deck visible](https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_1200x424_crop_center-center_82_line/20140729_plasticcanvas_dawn_2.jpg 1200w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_768x271_crop_center-center_82_line/20140729_plasticcanvas_dawn_2.jpg 768w, https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/_576x203_crop_center-center_82_line/20140729_plasticcanvas_dawn_2.jpg 576w)
A closeup view of the bus. I stuffed the bus tightly with stuffing, so I can use it as a pincushion to stick in labels. I need to work on nicer-looking label pins.
This was fun, and also pretty fast, so I think I'll be stitching more spacecraft! Now I have a question for you readers. Is there anyone out there crazy enough about spacecraft to want to stitch their own? Should I write up a pattern and sell it on Etsy? Should I sell kits? Send me an email and let me know!
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