The Martin Space Program

It’s been a WHILE since I posted anything here. When I left off I had started dabbling in 3D printing using a Lulzbot Taz 6. Fast forward almost 2 years later, and I have ditched FDM printing entirely in lieu of resin printing. I won’t get into the details of why I prefer resin printing here, so maybe I’ll save that for a future post.

I recently introduced my daughters to the world of model rockets by giving them a couple of beginner Estes kits for Christmas last year. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, we finally had some family time available to get them assembled and had a great time launching them. But as I was analyzing one of the recovered rockets, I thought to myself “hey, I could design and print one of these”.

So I did.

I’m proud to present to you the Martin Space Program’s first fully functional prototype, the Taurus Mk1. The Taurus was fully conceived and built by me using Tinkercad. While I did use an Estes Alpha for some size references, all of the components, including the airfoils, nose cone & integral cord attachment, engine mounts, and inner components were all designed 100% from scratch.

Here are the specs of the print:

• Printer: Anycubic Photon
• Resin: Elegoo Water Washable Photopolymer Resin (Black)
• Designed in: Tinkercad
• Slicer: Chitbuox 1.6.3
• Print time: 10 hours, 14 minutes (one continuous print)
  • 0.05mm (50 micron)
  • 8 second normal exposure
  • 60 second bottom exposure
• Print cost: ~$1.63 USD

Here are the specs of the rocket:

• Overall height: 13.5″ (343mm)
• Base width: 4″ (101.5mm)
• Engine: 1 x Estes B6-4 or Estes C6-5 (may fit others, but tested with these)
• Pieces: 8
  • Nose cone
  • Upper stage
  • Lower stage
  • Top engine stop
  • Engine mount
  • 3 x airfoils

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You’re welcome to help yourself to the STL files attached to this post and tinker with them yourself. I provide no guarantee or warranty for these models or prints!

Enjoy!