Hello All,
Here is another scale subject (please see below). If Estes doesn't produce a scale kit of it (they have 3:1 tangent ogive nose cones that would work perfectly for it), hopefully Boyce Aerospace Hobbies and/or Aerobotix will offer 3D printed parts for it, and perhaps even in multiple scales:
Congratulations to JAXA for orbiting a satellite with the world’s smallest and lightest SLV (Satellite Launch Vehicle)! The student-built, approximately 3-kilogram TRICOM 1R test satellite was launched into orbit from Japan’s Uchinoura Space Center aboard the SS-520-5 vehicle, a two-stage SS-520 sounding rocket fitted with a nitrogen-jet stabilization system and a third stage. At 9.5 meters (31 feet) tall, 520 millimeters (about 20 inches) in diameter, and weighing just 2.6 metric tons, the all-solid propellant vehicle is by far the smallest rocket ever to achieve orbit. Also:
While JAXA has no plans to commercialize the vehicle, this test flight—a re-flight of last year’s failed SS-520-4 launch attempt—was conducted in order to validate low-cost technologies and launch operations procedures to be incorporated into a future nanolauncher (one possible design is the SS-520-derived NL-520, see Reply #16 *here*:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/in...p?topic=40509.0 ) for lofting small satellites into user-selected orbits, on their schedules. Below are links to information, photographs, and video coverage of the SS-520-5/TRICOM 1R mission:
http://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/0...1r-test-launch/ (a video and an ascent events timeline are included)
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2018/02/20...ss-520-5_j.html (the English button is in the upper right-hand corner)
http://www.youtube.com/results?sear...ss-520-5+rocket (YouTube SS-520-5 video links), and:
http://www.google.com/search?source...0 .i2o74SGLJy4 (*lots* of links here, including to video coverage)
I hope this material will be helpful.