Fobos 2

Well, it appears that only 57 people would like to see this become a set, and it has less than a month left to gain even 43 more to extend the time. I have a feeling that computer renders just aren't selling my ideas, so I've decided to physically build all of my MOCs in the future before submitting them here. I plan on doing this with my Soyuz set, and I might as well do it with this one, if only to include it on my desk along with Kei Abe's Boctok and Mapc designs and Stephen Pakbaz's Voyager 2. 

My next project is an old project, my Soyuz MOC. I'm resubmitting it with brand new renders, the main image showing the modular layout of the model, which had I included in the main image the last go round may have garnered it more support...

Here's a much better rendering of my Fobos 2 MOC. Sorry I didn't use this level of detail in the main images, but rendering of this size takes 12+ hours on my laptop. 

Creating model spacecraft takes a ton of research. It's needed for everything, from learning what the spacecraft did, getting the proportions right in the model, and in the creation of a good description on IDEAS, to name a few. Unfortunately the Soviet space program, especially the Mars spacecraft, lack definitive details on basically everything. A great example of this are the Mars 71 and Mars 73 landers: almost every facet of information on these two class of landers lists only Mars 71 as having tethered rovers, when in fact both types of landers carried  PrOP-M rovers (PrOP is a fancy acronym for rover, and M just stands for Mars; PrOP-F means Rover-Fobos). When creating a LEGO model of any Soviet spacecraft this lack of detailed information is really annoying. But there is one book that I've found that is a godsend for people trying to scale Soviet probes. It's called Soviet Robots in the Solar System: Mission Technologies and Discoveries by Wesley Huntress and Mikhail Marov. It contains heavily researched and greatly detailed information on the Luna, Venera, Mars, Zond, Vega and Fobos spacecraft, with tons of technical drawings and tidbits you won't find anywhere else (did you know Fobos 1 was killed by a missing hyphen? Neither did I until I read this book!) 

We often think of rovers as wheeled devices with giant, eye-like cameras. They almost have faces, and we often give them human like personas. The problem with wheels is that they need traction to move, and on a world like Phobos, where the gravity is .0006 (a person would way about as much as a slice of bread), wheels cannot get any traction. There's just not enough gravity pushing them down to the surface. So the Soviets designed the most unique rover in history, one that uses four slender antenna like protrusions for movement. These "whiskers," as they are officially termed, act like a pole-vault. They rotate around with springs that help launch the rover straight up in the air, landing about 20 meters from the start point. This is why the PrOP-F Rover is often referred to as the "Hopper" or the "Frog." Here is my PrOP-F rover next to Stephen Pakbaz's Mars Exploration Rover of the same scale (1:40). 

My latest project is in the rendering phase, and should be submitted by the end of the week. Keep those eyes peered! 

My inspiration for creating this project came from a 2006 book called Space Missions: From Sputnik to SpaceShipOne: The History of Spaceflight by Jim Winchester. It had an entire section (the book is divided into over a hundred two-page sections) on the Fobos Program. Winchester's descriptive, fact based storytelling, superb computer renders and illustrations, and the general mystique surrounding this highly advanced spacecraft made me want to create a model of Fobos 2. Although I originally thought of creating a 3D-printed version, a couple of years ago I set out to create a LEGO model. Work, school, and my procrastic nature forced me to take more time than I had planned before it was finally complete. Attached to this update is an image scanned from the Fobos Program section of the book that inspired me (sadly the scanner was too small, and so the left quarter was cut-out). All rights are reserved to Jim Winchester and Thunder Bay Press.

Here are a couple of images related to Fobos 2. The first picture is the backup spacecraft interned at the NPO-Lavochkin Museum outside Moscow, and was photographed by Mark McCaughrean. It's sometimes called Fobos 3, because it was the backup spacecraft in case of a launch failure in 1988. It was later modified for launch in a redo of the mission in 1990, but the collapse of the Soviet Union prevented this. The second picture was an image taken by the real Fobos 2 of the Martian moon Phobos with the red planet in the backdrop. The picture included is of higher quality than the original, and was processed by Ted Stryk.  

I would like to give a super special thanks to Kei Abe, a fellow AFOL and space enthusiast who has been instrumental in completing this project. He has provided me with much needed feedback and lots of photographs of model and mockup Fobos spacecraft that have proved essential to finishing this project, a project that has taken me a lot longer than expected (two years). To share my thanks I have included a rendering of my Fobos 2 next to his Mars 3 MOC. Because Soviet engineers often recycled hardware from previous spacecraft, some design elements were permissibly used from Kei Abe's Mars 3 to create my Fobos 2. Thank you very much for all of your support, Kei Abe!