The Mars Polar Lander
Space Craft SCIENCE Kit
The Mars Polar Lander Space Craft SCIENCE KIT is the newest product from SCI.
It is also the smallest, simplest, easiest to assemble, and the least expensive! This is a photograph of an assembled Mars Polar Lander Space Craft SCIENCE KIT. The model is 1/32 scale, measuring about 11 cm (4.5 inches) from solar panel to solar panel. This kit is also different in that it does not have a fact sheet or presentation guide included. All the information about the Mars Polar Lander mission is available here on the web.
Here's a link to an illustration of the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft, showing all its major parts. And this is an artist's conception of how MPL will look on the surface of the red planet.
A close-up of some of the MPL kit's parts is shown at right. We placed a piece of pink paper behind the parts sheet to scan the image, so everywhere you see pink is where the paper has been vaporized from the parts sheet. There is a lot of gold metal foil applied to the part labelled "DECK" to simulate the appearance of the spacecraft. The gold didn't show up very well in this scanned image, though. You can't see its specular reflection, and it looks a little green in the scanner's image.
There are only eleven laser-cut parts to this kit. You need to supply white glue (or a hot-glue gun if desired) and two 1/2-inch diameter spheres to represent Mars Polar Lander's propellant tanks. Crumpled foil works well for these. For the model in the photo, we used tiny Christmas-tree ornaments.
View the MPL Kit's Assembly Instructions.
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