Falcon 9 upper stage
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
Falcon 9 upper stage is one of the 203 3D models Space Radar made itself: a rocket stage, 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 17,596 triangles in a 89 kB glTF file, and is 13 m across at full scale.
It is part of the map’s library; no object on the live map is drawn with it today.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Fairing diameter | 5.2 m |
| Fairing length | 13.1 m |
| Stage diameter | 3.66 m |
Wikipedia, Falcon 9 Full Thrust (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Full_Thrust), quoting SpaceX: fairing 5.2 m across and 13.1 m long. OURS: the fairing's flare, its ogive and its nose radius (an ellipse-like curve, not SpaceX's), the cut along x = 0 into halves (read 2026-11-03)
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 published dimensions; compared with SpaceX's CC0 photographs and Steve Jurvetson's CC BY 2.0 photographs of the stage.
The full record
built by this project in code (tools/falcon9-builder/falcon9.py: the fairing halves; the second stage is the build of tools/stage-builder/stages.py falcon9, the row `falcon9-stage2`); no image-to-3D model and no published mesh (read 2026-11-03)
Where the map uses it. NOTHING YET, as a route on the map: the upper stack of the `falcon9-og2-2` Moment (release 1.7.7): the second stage as release 1.4.0 built it (`falcon9-stage2`, 3.66 m across, 13.8 m with its engine) and the two halves of the fairing (5.2 m across, 13.1 m long, white, flared to the stage's width at its base) as separate parts, so that the Moment lets them go at T+2:48. Loaded by id; frame: +Y up the stage, the engine bell's tip on y = 0; ride it on the booster at [0, 41.65, 0]; stand it with keepXZ
Licence note. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts); the references of `falcon9-stage2` apply to the stage.
References 1
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- Falcon 9 first stage at LZ-1(two)SpaceXCC0 (Commons LicenseShortName, read 2026-11-03)
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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:
Falcon 9 upper stage 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=falcon9-upper" title="Falcon 9 upper stage, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
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