The Lunokhod spacecraft has three types of antennas, a high gain directionnal antenna, a medium gain conical antenna and four low gain antennas situated around the Lunokhod body. The work continued wit the conical and omnidirectional antennas for which I have produced a blueprint as shown in figures 30. This blueprint can be printed on an A4 paper, the scale being 1/10.
The first step was the construction of the conical antenna. The cone itself was made out of 0.25 mm styrene sheet, inside the cone several 0.75 mm styrene circles were glued to give the perfect conical shape and imperfections were filled with putty. Around the cone the antenna cable (telephone wire) was fixed onto an aluminium band, there were two aluminium bands, each doing two revolutions around the cone. Once this was done the space between the aluminium bands was painted in orange-brown (figures 31).
The antenna base was then constructed followed by the antenna mast. For this I used 3.2 mm styrene rod and 4.8 mm and 6.3 mm styrene tubes for the attachment part to the Lunokhod body (figures 32). Then followed the construction of the small solar panel by using 0.4 mm styrene sheet and 0.88 mm styrene rods (figures 33). The two connectors (on the mast and on the solar panel structure) were made within a 3.2 mm styrene rod.
The solar panel was then assembled onto the mast (figures
34) and the complete part was given a surface primer (figure
35) except the antenna itself protected by adhesive tape. The antenna
then received its cable and its solar cells (part of the pdf blueprint
printed on adhesive paper with an inkjet printer) and was finally assembled
onto the Lunokhod body (figures 36).
Magnetometer |
Omnidirectional antennas
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