Affectionately nicknamed "Ol' Bug Eyes" by some and "The Brick Arrow" by others, the Stingray DSE-4 (MK I) is Bengal Shipyards' workhorse Deep Space Explorer. Several have been used to explore the Oort cloud for water and rare earths mining opportunities.

Play features

 

1. Plenty of amenities for its four-person crew. Spacious main cabin with bridge, medical bay, sleeping bays, lab, gym, and shower/toilet.
2. Removable top hull for easy play access to main cabin.
3. Cargo bay with large swing out doors that house and launch jetpacks.
4. Two jetpacks for closeup comet, asteroid, and ice cluster exploration.
5. Air-lock separates shirt sleeves main cabin environment from cargo bay.
6. Main cabin (Child) can separate from cargo bay + engine module (Mother) and function independently for shorter missions requiring more maneuverability.

Homages to 10497

 

1. I retained the innovative brick built arrow, which now points where the action is (the cargo bay doors and the craft docking line).
2. I transformed the "beds" into jetpacks because I think jetpacks that accommodate the astronaut's life support packs are way cooler than beds.
3. More meta than homage, I embraced the "brick built arrow" theme and made the whole spaceship look like an arrow. Officially calling it "The Brick Arrow," however, would have been a bit much.

 

More images on Flickr and Bricksafe.

Free instructions will be up on Rebrickable when the MOC is accepted.

For those fond of the artistic process, I kept a build diary.

 

Interesting design work and build. Since you used 10497 for the build, the colors are perfect. The cockpit does appear rather cramped. Hope it's not a long trip to the Oort Cloud from the base.

28 minutes ago, Feuer Zug said:

Interesting design work and build. Since you used 10497 for the build, the colors are perfect. The cockpit does appear rather cramped. Hope it's not a long trip to the Oort Cloud from the base.

I may have crammed too many things into the cabin. Maybe I should have removed the lab and moved the medi-bay to the aft starboard, giving more room for the sleeping quarters.

On the other hand, I looked at ISS photos for a while, and the "cramped" nature might be standard for pressurized spaces in a spacecraft even in the future.