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The Magellan
Space Craft SCIENCE Kit
Order code: MSK
This is a photo of an assembled Magellan Space Craft SCIENCE KIT. Here are six more photos of the assembled kit. If you've built a Voyager model, you'll find nothing really extraordinary about the Magellan model. It uses the very same styrofoam High-Gain Antenna dish part, and it uses the same ten-sided spacecraft bus, as well as struts and other components. And that's exactly true of the actual  Magellan Spacecraft as well. A flight spare High-Gain Antenna dish from the Voyager project was obtained, as was the design for the bus and several other components. The solar panels are new for Magellan.
Since Magellan would fly closer to the Sun than the Earth is, there would be plenty of sunlight for them to convert into electricity to run the spacecraft. The model's solar panels have rows of bright blue simulated solar cells, alternating with rows of silver ink that represents the diffuse silver color of Magellan's optical solar reflectors, little rectangles of quartz mirror which reflected excess sunlight to help keep things cool. There's a large rectangular equipment module below the High-Gain Antenna dish and above the bus. On the spacecraft, that's where the radar equipment was located, as well as batteries, reaction wheels for attitude control, and other equipment (all explained in the kit's illustrated graphic fact sheet). The white color of much of the model represents Magellan's thermal control coloring. There's a lot of gold metal foil trim for the same purpose. The gold foil, by the way, is already bonded to the model parts. You don't have to do any detailing. In the smaller image at right, you can see some of the gold foil on the struts that hold the rocket engine modules (REM)... they're called REM supports. There are four of these, as you can tell in the top photo of the assembled model. You fold along the dotted lines (they're actually lines of slits through the card stock), and the struts become rigid. You can also see the two halves of a helium tank in the small image. The two halves join together at right angles, slit into slit, to give the impression of a sphere when viewed from most angles.
The 100% recycled card stock we use becomes slightly yellow with age. That's not apparant in any of our other models, because they're lithographed with mostly dark ink colors. But the Magellan model, like the spacecraft, has lots of white area. There's a Magellan model in SCI's office that has been there since 1992, and it has visibly yellowed like an old newspaper. But this, too, just happens to be in keeping with the reality of the Magellan spacecraft!
As Magellan continued to operate in orbit at Venus, the strong sunlight had its yellowing effect on the actual spacecraft. This was evidenced by its deteriorating thermal performance - the spacecraft's reflective blanketing was becoming less reflective. To live with the problem, the spacecraft just had to turn with its High-Gain Antenna dish toward the Sun once in a while, to shade the spacecraft and allow temperatures to come down.
The Magellan kit has 28 laser-cut parts, and one styrofoam part. Assembled model is about 10 inches (26 cm) overall. Scale is the same as the Voyager model, approximately 1/30.
View the Magellan Kit's Fact Sheet.
Space Craft SCIENCE KIT Price:
$14.95 each.
Only the model parts are shipped. Assembly Instructions, Fact Sheet, and Presentation Guide are accessible here on the website.
Free shipping within the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. For other countries, $10.50 is added to the order total for shipping and handling.
Space Craft SCIENCE KITs are designed and made in the U.S.A. using state-of-the-art processes and the highest quality recycled materials.
PAGE UPDATED 2021 MARCH 20
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