TESS Exoplanet Surveyor Spacecraft

thingiverse

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is on a two-year mission to monitor more than 200,000 stars. It would be wise to have your own model of the spacecraft on hand, especially if NASA drops by for advice and you don't want to appear clueless. You can view a 3D model on the NASA website - it's available at https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/3d_model.html. However, inspecting the STL files reveals that this model is not suitable for most home FDM printers. The mesh has significant problems in many areas and would require numerous supports to print correctly. It's likely that NASA used a specialized printer like an SLS or SLA machine to create their sample, and it may be best to send your own prints to an online shop. Even then, some elements might pose difficulties. Rather than trying to improve the existing design, I decided to create a new model from scratch using publicity photos as a guide. My goal was to avoid unnecessary supports whenever possible. To achieve this, I used fundamental shapes and carefully positioned the various instruments. As you can imagine, there's always some artistic license involved when printing at a desk-friendly scale. You'll need to make educated guesses about the intricate details of certain instruments that wouldn't print well at smaller scales. Thankfully, my test prints suggest that this design is nicely printable on most filament-based 3D printers. I've included an attractive display stand with the model, which can be easily assembled without any glue. However, if you plan to handle your spacecraft model frequently, a little hot-glue can go a long way in keeping everything together. Makers who enjoyed this design may also appreciate my other 3D-printer friendly spacecraft models. You can find them on Thingiverse at the following links: * [Cassini](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2520236) * [New Horizons](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2981988) Other options include Sputnik and OSIRIS-REx.