Delta II Rocket Fairing for Kepler Space Telescope by wanhaofan1

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

This is an approximately 1/33 scale Delta II rocket fairing for the Kepler Telescope (1/33 scale model downloadable here: https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/kepler-ss). It includes models of the internal support and third stage STAR48b rocket. The Kepler Telescope can be displaed in the fairing or on the stand that comes with the NASA download.
You will need to print:
2x fairings
2x hinge pins and caps
1x of everything else
Optional:
5x 6mm diameter x 1mm thick magnets
The Kepler model isn't the best for FDM 3D printing. Some of the walls are very thin, and there are a lot of features that require internal supports that are almost impossible to remove. If I were to print it again, I'd use a smaller nozzle (~0.2mm or less) for most of it. If you have water soluble support material, I strongly suggest using it. I also don't think it's toleranced correctly, so you'll probably need to sand/grind parts of it to get it all to fit together. That being said, it was free and very detailed.
I used the magnets to help hold the model to the bases and to keep the fairing halves together when closed. You'll have to grind small holes (or do some sort of STL editing) in the Kepler model parts for the magnets because the magnet cut outs aren't modeled.
Depending on your printer's tolerances, you may need to drill out the hinge holes. I added about 0.5mm clearance, but I still ended up having to drill them out with a 5.5mm drill bit. The rocket fairing has a hole/post combination near the top to help align it. The post has a small support modeled in that will need to be cut off.
Print orientations: I have not oriented the files in any particular way. I printed all of the parts axis-vertical, but you might find it easier to do them another way. I ended up printing the fairings in two halves (so 4 parts) because my printer isn't tall enough. I also printed the star48b in two halves to prevent internal support material from being not-removable. You might be able to print these parts in one piece depending on your printer.
The gold foil is "rose gold toner foil". I applied it with a combination of thick double sided tape and glue. I think contact cement would work the best. The "base" Kepler part is supposed to be covered in a combination of silver and gold mylar, but it looked very difficult to do. Google "kepler telescope rocket fairing" or something like that to see some pictures of it in the fairing.
The decals' images were downloaded from images online (google search "Kepler logo", "NASA logo", and "solar cell"), scaled in PowerPoint, printed on label paper, cut out, and applied.
Of course the real rocket fairing wasn't hinged, but I thought it made a nice display. You could probably cut the hinges off if you don't like them.
If you can think of any improvements, please add them in the comments, and I will try to make them. I already re-did some of the vertical dimensions of the truss, support_bottom, and support_top so that they look more to scale than the ones I printed (same total height though, so it shouldn't affect how the Kepler Telescope fits in the fairing).