The Apollo Education Experience Project
Building a full-scale Apollo Command Module replica
Since I’m shifting the current focus of the Project to completing the Main Display and Control Panel (MDC), I needed to get the last of its acrylic overlay panels completed. I sent the next files to S&T GeoTronics (www.stgeotronics.com) for cutting and engraving the overlays, including the main overlay for
The Apollo Education Experience Project is proud to announce that S&T GeoTronics (www.stgeotronics.com) is now shipping all of their Open DSKY kits and assembled units with the custom Arduino code and audio clips created for the Project, along with a printed copy of the command reference manual. Marc Tessier of
I’m about to shift the focus of construction onto the main control panels, but I want to get to a clean stopping place before I do. There’s a reason for this, which I will announce at a later time. Also, I apologize for the delay in getting this posted –
With the most difficult parts of the navigation station control panel completed, I turned to the remaining details and the final assembly. The next detail to finish was the thumbwheel for the sextant reticle brightness control. I had previously modeled some thumbwheels for other control panels, so I took that
The next difficulty with the navigation station was the control pockets. On the real CM, these don’t have corners but rather rounded edges and appear to be molded out of a single piece of material. I chose instead to make the pockets using good ol’ MDF and hardboard. I considered
Although the panel I just finished had depth to the switch recesses, they weren’t deep enough. So I traced the openings onto some 3/4″ MDF and cut those openings out to match. The one opening I did not cut was the rectangular opening for the Master Alarm switch/indicator. Instead, I
Next up for the navigation station: the optics control panel. This is probably one of the things I least looked forward to building because of its complexity. Not only are all the switches individually recessed in deep pockets, but each pocket is individually lit. Plus, there are the two recessed
Now that I’ve determined how I’m going to make the doors, I have a number of other doors to make. The CM had a lot of little nooks and crannies that were used to store and stow stuff, and all were covered with doors of various sizes. Because of the
As seen in an earlier post, I had cut a closeout panel for the Lower Equipment Bay that would fit below the navigation station and provide openings for connectors for the removable rotation and translation controllers. These connectors are recessed into these openings, so I put several layers of material
