Ranger 7 (#2)

Ranger

My silver body shines
Spread out blue wings
In this unfiltered sunlight
I am falling to my end

While the craters grow
I keep watching
Passing on
What I see

For those who made me
Who understand

I hope my last view
Will arrive
Beyond the vastness of the
Dark ocean
When I crash
In moon dust

And there it is. Ready. First all the instrument packs around the hexagon. I used Yogi's boxes as a template and put foil around them. Next the four small crane-like structures on the hexagon for keeping the solar panels up in the launch phase. In a lot of pictures I saw some kind of wires from these "cranes" to the arrays, so I decided to do that too. I think it was part of the system to lower them - close to the main bus there are pusher pistons (spring induced) to push the PVA's down and the wires keep them perpendicular to the body while the probe was still attached to the Agena. At least that's what I think.

Shiny shiny PVA's (photo voltaic arrays)

The PVA's themselves came out very nice, too. The tubing structure underneath the hexagon was a little tricky but I managed to get it just about right. The PVA's went on without any problem and then I started carefully cutting out the HGA. I used the dry wall tape again for the mesh structure of the dish. It is a bit crude compared to the fine mesh the original has but it shows the suggestion of it.

The GHA (High Gain Antenna)

Then it was adding those aforementioned wires to the "cranes" and the PVA's. (stiffened wire with CA and cut in the desired length) The diorama display already was made when I was doing the paper maché work on the Sno Cat.

Here's the end result on a stick on a frame above the lunar surface:

What's next? I don't know yet...