Pathfinder and Sojourner

Inspiration

I first read about Pathfinder in Andy Weir’s ‘The Martian’. It wasn’t until the movie came out that I saw what it looked like and was immediately impressed by the symmetry of its tetrahedral shape. As an aspiring aerospace engineer, this project is particularly close to my heart as it represents a revolution in aerospace and allowed the space industry to survive through hard times. It is a big part of the reason why the companies I would like to work at someday exist today. The lander represents our undying thirst for knowledge of the Universe we live in and how nothing can stand in its way.

What it does

The probe deployed the first rover outside the Earth Moon system and was a turning page in the way spacecraft are designed and built. To us, it represented a hope for the future where space travel is affordable and achievable both for probes and humans.

How we built it

We knew that we wanted to build a model with an aerospace theme and pathfinder is a lesser known probe that we decided deserves recognition. We started by modelling the panels and as we got a better reference frame, we were able to create the other components. Most of the components are modelled as separate assemblies, both for easy assembly and to be able to make them move (please refer to the animation in the presentation.

Challenges we ran into

Surprisingly, a probe that has been defunct since 1997, does not have an active Instagram page and well dimensioned images were impossible to find.

We had to use the height of the camera mast and area of the solar panels to calculate/guess all the other dimensions.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The biggest challenge as mentioned above was the lack of usable reference images and dimensions. But I am very proud of the fact that I was able to use the limited information to create a fairly accurate model.

Built With

• nx