EarthCARE
Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified.
Turn it in 3D
Open the 3D viewer (www.spaceradar.ai).
The viewer loads when you ask: about 700 kB the first time (three.js and the model), much less after.
About this model
EarthCARE is one of the 203 3D models Space Radar made itself: a satellite, built in code from published dimensions and photographs, with no image-to-3D generator and no one else’s mesh.
Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified. It has 8,866 triangles in a 75 kB glTF file, and is 17 m across at full scale.
On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 59908, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Length | 17.2 m |
| Width | 2.5 m |
| Depth | 3.5 m |
| Array | 21 m² |
| Dish | 2.5 m |
ESA, EarthCARE facts and figures, esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/EarthCARE/Fact…, OPENED 2026-10-20: 17.2 m long including an 11 m solar array, 2.5 m wide, 3.5 m deep; ESA's picture 'EarthCARE facts and figures': '17.2 x 2.5 x 3.5 m'; ESA, EarthCARE satellite: five sections, 21 m2, trailing behind the platform. eoPortal, eoportal.org/satellite-missions/earthcare, OPENED 2026-10-20: 'a deployable, trailed array made of five identical panels', '21.5 m2', the yoke '1.9 m long'; the CPR 'a 2.5 m diameter offset Cassegrain reflector' fixed at nadir, supported by the lidar's top panel; ATLID's telescope '620 mm' on the nadir side; the MSI on the anti-sun side, its camera tilted 5 degrees; the BBR's telescopes at nadir and +-55 degrees; star trackers on the zenith panel. The two give 21 and 21.5 m2: we built 21 (five panels 1.68 by 2.5 m). OURS: the body 4.1 by 2.3 by 2.0 m, the dish's place and its 29 degree lean, the radar tower, the wing's turn (60 degrees about its axis), every instrument's size (read 2026-10-20)
How it was made
Built in code from published dimensions and photographs, with no image-to-3D generator and no one else’s mesh. 3D model: built by Space Radar from ESA's and eoPortal's published dimensions; compared with photographs by ESA (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) and Syced (CC0).
The full record
built by this project in code (release 1.3.0 stage W3-b's part library, lib.py and parts.py, and one script a craft, kept with the stage's notes in ~/space-radar-handoff/release-1.3/W3-b/build), from the cited dimensions and the pictures under `references`; no image-to-3D model was used, and no published mesh: NASA's 3D Resources and NASA Science have none of these craft; ESA publishes no model of them under terms that allow a derivative (its multimedia terms, the ESA Standard Licence, allow use for information and education, not an altered model); EUMETSAT publishes none (read 2026-10-20)
Where the map uses it. NORAD 59908, EarthCARE, the ESA and JAXA cloud, aerosol and radiation explorer launched in May 2024 (the White Dragon): a white box with the cloud radar's 2.5 m dish out in front looking at the Earth, the lidar's telescope and the radiometer's three on its Earth face, and five panels trailing behind on a yoke. It was the class shape of a satellite, a box with two wings and a dish; public #955
Licence note. No ESA or JAXA picture or model is in the file. Looked at only: ESA's photographs and pictures under the ESA Standard Licence (named under `references`). Compared with, with credit: ESA's photograph 'Cleaning EarthCARE' (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) and Syced's photograph of JAXA's 1/50 model (CC0), both on Wikimedia Commons; nothing of them is in the file. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts).
References 5
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- Cleaning EarthCARE ESA25462753ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGOCC BY-SA 3.0 IGO (European Space Agency; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
- Inside JAXA Space Dome 5Syced, CC0CC0 (Syced, own work; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
- EarthCARE solar wing deployed ESA24376876ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGOCC BY-SA 3.0 IGO (European Space Agency; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
- EarthCARE over EuropeESAESA Standard Licence; looked at only
- EarthCARE standing proud in the anechoic chamberESAESA Standard Licence; looked at only
Use it
The model is under the MIT licence: use it, change it and share it, in any project, also a paid one. Keep the credit:
EarthCARE 3D model by Space Radar (spaceradar.ai), MIT LicenseAny glTF 2.0 loader that reads meshopt compression (EXT_meshopt_compression) opens the file: three.js with its MeshoptDecoder, Babylon.js, model-viewer. Tools such as glTF-Transform can write an uncompressed copy.
Or embed the viewer in your page:
<iframe src="https://www.spaceradar.ai/model/?id=earthcare" title="EarthCARE, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
