Gallery

About Project

Fallen Astronaut is an 8.9 cm aluminum sculpture created by Paul Van Hoeydonck. It is a small stylized figure, meant to depict an astronaut in a spacesuit, intended to commemorate the astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the advancement of space exploration. It was commissioned and placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15 at Hadley Rille on August 1, 1971, next to a plaque listing the 14 men known who died. The statue lies horizontally on the ground among several footprints.
A client hoped we could help her with the exhibition held in McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. She had the plaque and prepared the Moon surface, and planned to build a replica of the astronaut art piece. She found the STL file on Cults3D, the format of which is only suitable for 3D printing, not ok for CNC machining. So we need to redraw the model in STP format, which costs only $20 as the shape is simple. The CNC milling cost of one piece of the aluminum astronaut is $50.

Solution

• Step 1: Check the STL file and give the quote of one aluminum piece. Our engineer also recommends the die-casting technology with Zinc alloy for low-volume production and cheaper unit price.
• Step 2: Redraw an astronaut in CAD, and generate the STP file for CNC machining.
• Step 3: The 5-axis CNC miller recreate the design on the aluminum block according to the instructions.