Assembling A Surplus Geodesic Space Dome

Last fall we went up to Carp, Ontario, to pick up a surplus radome! This came from a former NATO satellite facility, which is now used as a radio observatory. While I'm not exactly sure where this particular dome was used, these are frequently found on radar towers, satellite ground station downlinks, and radio telescopes. They provide protection from the weather for delicate antennas and other hardware. This one was manufactured by "Electronic Space Systems Co", probably in the 1980s. It's 18ft in diameter and 16ft tall.

I'm planning to install an old satellite TV dish inside and use it as both a radio telescope and satellite Earth station. You can see some of my other satellite and radio telescope experiments here:    • Radio and Satellite Stuff  

First, we had to figure out how all the triangular panels went together! The layout is somewhat of a random pattern to improve radio transparency, so it's not as simple as just bolting every triangle to any other triangle. The thing was basically a giant 3D puzzle! While it did come with instructions and some pieces were labeled, it was still a challenge to build!

Initial assembly took 3 days with an average of 5 people. We still have some final tightening and waterproofing to do, but that will be another weekend!

Check out the original video about picking up the dome from Canada, here:    • I Bought A Geodesic Space Dome!  

And Part 2 of the project here:    • Geodesic Dome Part 2 - Moving and Sor...  

There will be more updates in the future, so stay tuned for more!

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