CSPAR gains two scale models of spacecraft crucial to its work, courtesy of UAH alumnus

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (SEP. 12, 2024) – Two scale models of spacecraft that provide research data to The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR) have joined a Parker Solar Probe model on prominent display at CSPAR offices in Cramer Research Hall, thanks to a UAH alumnus who caught the modeling bug at age 4.

Blake Parker, who achieved his dream of working with NASA after graduation from UAH, a part of the University of Alabama System, donated the realistic-looking paper models of the Voyager and the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) during a CSPAR gathering on Sept. 11. They join a Parker Solar Probe (PSP) model he donated in 2020.

"We are very grateful to Blake for the untold hours that he spends creating these marvels, and we look forward to displaying these in the display case that is the first thing that one sees when entering CSPAR," says Dr. Gary Zank, CSPAR director.

A 2013 UAH mechanical and aerospace engineering graduate, Parker works for NASA as an International Space Station (ISS) payload operations and integration specialist through Teledyne Brown, Inc. He says the models were made by combining various parts of other kits and creating some new pieces from scratch.

"For Voyager, I actually used parts from a couple of different kits. One of the perks of paper models is that the part files can be scaled as big or small as you need and they're often free," Parker says. "The high gain antenna – the big white dish – is from a resin kit by a company called Realspace Models and is made of vacuformed plastic."

The Voyager model taught him a new technique.

"With the Voyager model, I figured out how to use tissue paper to replicate spacecraft thermal blankets."

His IBEX creation started as a printable papercraft kit, as well.

When he presented the PSP model to Zank, Parker says that the CSPAR director asked whether Parker could reproduce the Voyager and IBEX crafts, as well.

"Blake takes these fantastic NASA spacecraft, which epitomize human aspirations and ingenuity, and creates beautiful miniatures that convey a tactile and 3D sense to our Earthbound selves of what these historic spacecraft look like," says Zank, who has been a co-investigator on the IBEX mission since its inception, which was prior to his UAH arrival. IBEX launched in 2008.

IBEX is special to Zank, who had a primary role proposing it based on work he's been doing since the early 1990s. IBEX studies how the heliosphere – the magnetic bubble surrounding the sun and planets – interacts with interstellar space, and created the first maps showing the interactions at that border.

"Shortly after the first IBEX results were returned, I wrote an important paper in 2010, based on an even more impactful paper from 1996, that showed how the physics of interstellar pickup ions at the heliospheric termination shock could be used through measurements of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) to probe the microphysics of the termination shock and the physics of the boundary regions," Zank says.

UAH graduate students under the leadership of Dr. Jacob Heerikhuisen applied Zank's paper to create the current standard by which IBEX interprets ENA observations. A new mission, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) launches in 2025 to expand the research with a variety of instruments.

"IMAP will significantly open up the window for a combined exploration of interplanetary and interstellar space," says Zank. "Very exciting!"

As the "go-to" team for the large-scale modeling and physics of the solar wind interaction with the local interstellar medium, CSPAR researchers are also extensive users of data returned by the remaining working instruments on both Voyager missions. It's critical in informing theory and space model development, Zank says.