LEGO at Hafhead.com: Friendship 2004: Overview and Mission Summary

Friendship 2004
Overview and Mission Summary

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	The mission is to send astronaut Chuck Grey to Mars to rescue Biff Starling and Sandy Moondust. Pictured from left to right are Sandy, Chuck, and Biff. Biff and Sandy were sent to Mars with no plan in place to actually return them to Earth. So I built a ship to get them back. I didn't invent Biff and Sandy. They were made up by the Lego company and NASA, and did fly to Mars (sort of). You can get info about that on The Planetary Society's site. Yes, I know that my Biff and Sandy figures aren't right- I only own one of the promotional minifigs, and I chose to use the suit for Chuck.
	Here is the full ship, after assembly in Earth orbit. The components are sent up via various conventional launch vehicles. As such, the whole vehicle is never intended to withstand full Earth gravity. This saves considerable structural mass. On the nose of the ship (the top in this picture), is the Mars Lander Module (MLM). It is attached upside-down to the rest of the ship, and has big round meteorite shields covering the bottom (leading) surface. The rest of the ship is the Command and Service Module. The top half of that is the Command section, housing the astronauts' living space. The bottom half is the Service section, with the engines and various bits of machinery such as life-support, gyros, and energy cells. Four external fuel tanks are also attached to the Service section. The engines on the CSM may seem undersized, but they don't need to be large. On a journey where you have plenty of time, long slow burns are sufficient. And the smaller thrusters mean less weight. Less weight is good. Two of the external tanks are exhausted on the outbound acceleration burn and ejected just before deceleration. The other two are used for the deceleration burn and Mars orbit capture, then ejected just before heading back to Earth. The ship measures approximately 14 by 14 studs in cross-section by 80 studs tall. I tossed around concepts in my head for quite a while, but actually got the building done in 5 days. That is by far the most efficient five days of building I've ever done.
	Once Friendship 2004 is in Mars orbit, the shields protecting the bottom of the MLM are ejected and the pilot climbs into the lander. The MLM gently separates from the CSM and heads down to the surface. It uses both parachutes and its four thrusters to slow down and land safely where Chuck meets up with Biff and Sandy.
	The upper half of the lander, the Ascent stage, launches from the Descent stage and heads back to orbit where it will rendezvous with the CSM and then be left behind in orbit.
	The bottom half of the lander, which is left on the Martian surface, consists solely of thrusters, landing gear, and internal fuel tanks.
	Friendship 2004 is now pretty well stripped down. It makes final positioning maneuvers and then heads back to Earth using the fuel in its internal tanks. It decelerates again as it approaches Earth, and then meets up with a shuttle that returns the crew home.
Continue: CSM Exterior gallery