Hey!
I'm Yoan Soilen, creator of Starship3D.
Born and raise in France, I graduated from the University of Toulouse Blagnac (France) in 2006 with a major in aeronautical maintenance. Prior to this, I studied for 2 years mechanical design and production at the university of Jules Verne in Amiens (France) where I learned CAD design.
Later on, I moved to Canada to become a professional pilot. I flew float planes for 5 years in Northwestern Ontario and in 2019, I started flying medevac on twin turboprop airplanes.
I've always liked designing and building all sorts of things. In 2018, I started 3D printing and I've never looked back. I recommend any handyman to own a 3D printer; It's a game changer!
A Starship story
I started this project in November 2020. I have been following the progress of SpaceX at Boca Chica/Starbase, Texas, since the very beginning. I was spending most of my free time closely inspecting Mary's (@BocaChicaGal) pictures and reading the latest “how that starship is going to work” theory on the NASA Spaceflight forum.
At that time, there were already a lot of creators out there, like Neopork, Rafael Adamy or C_Bass3D, to name a couple of the most well-known artists. I found lots of detailed renders and amazing animations but came up empty-handed when trying to find highly detailed and up-to-date 3D printed models of Starship. My interest in CAD and 3d printing pushed me to fill that gap. I thought I could design a series of Starship models following the different iterations of the real prototypes seen in Starbase, Texas.
It started as a simple, stackable design with the sole purpose of testing the printability of the model. Stringers, welds, and domes were the most challenging parts but, I quickly realized the project could work. Soon after, the model SN8 V1.0 was created. I had learned countless lessons throughout the first version. The V1.0 was not even finished printing when I started working on the design of a more rigorous and detailed model: SN8 V2.0.
Starship SN9, 10 and 11 followed with all the modifications they needed to look like the real ones (Weld patterns, hatch locations, tiles…). These four ships were all design at the 1:50 scale which gives them a height of 100cm. I knew if I wanted to design a Booster at some point, I would have to use a smaller scale. At 1:50 scale, the whole stack would stand at almost 240cm which is too tall for most standard houses. I experimented and decided to use the 1:72 scale for all my future models which allows me to keep the same amounts of details for a more manageable overall size.
I started working on SN15 in late May 2021 and took 9 months to design. The ship is available in both scale (1:50 and 1:72). It includes an impressive number of details compared to my previous models, thanks to all the new photographers and current ones who kept on getting higher quality pictures.
Hundreds to thousands of hours were spent on pictures, videos, forums, and discords trying to understand the way Starship was built and the way it works. If you spend the time to search and look at all the pictures available online, you can see so much.
For example, I spent a couple of months studying the weld patterns of SN12 nose cone, some wreckage pictures of SN11 and some pictures of parts laying around the base to figure out the different structures holding the forward flaps. The result ended up going beyond my expectation when a leaked video, posted on social media showing the inside of SN9 nose cone, revealed that my design was pretty close to reality.
SN15 is also an improved model from the previous series. I improved a lot of the assemblies to make them easier to print and put together. A lot of testing has been done to make sure the Master Profile and print setting recommendations give you the best results. I also increased the number of magnets between each section, giving the ship an incredible solidity.
I hope this model gives you as much joy as it gives to me, and you will take pleasure disassembling it over and over to show your friends what the Future of Space Exploration is made of.
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