GCOM-W
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.
Pictures 4
Three-quarter view
From the side
From behind
From above
About this model
GCOM-W 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 9,956 triangles in a 66 kB glTF file, and is 18 m across at full scale.
On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 38337, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| X | 5.1 m |
| Y | 17.5 m |
| Z | 3.4 m |
| Mass | 1991 kg |
| Power | 4.05 kW |
| Reflector | 2 m |
eoPortal, eoportal.org/satellite-missions/gcom, OPENED 2026-10-26: 'The spacecraft on-orbit dimensions are (deployed configuration): 5.1 m (X) x 17.5 m (Y) x 3.4 m (Z). The spacecraft has a mass of about 1991 kg at launch (dry bus mass of 1324 kg, propellant mass of 151 kg, AMSR2 mass of 405 kg).' Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCOM-W, OPENED 2026-10-26: 'By rotating a disc antenna (diameter 2.0 m) in 1.5 s period, it scans the Earth surface along an arc of 1450 km length.' OURS: every size inside the envelope (the bus 1.5 x 2.8 x 1.5 m, the deck 2.5 x 3.4 m, the sensor unit, the truss, the paddles' 3.5 x 3.4 m of two by two panels), read off JAXA's pictures and the 1/50 model's proportions.
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 JAXA's published dimensions and photographs of JAXA's 1/50 model by Syced (CC0).
The full record
built by this project in code (the private tool model-from-images: assemble.py, from a yaml of primitives), from the cited dimensions and the pictures under `references`; no image-to-3D model was used, and no published mesh (NASA's 3D Resources, 1 583 paths read 2026-10-26, and NASA Science's resources have none of this craft; the agency pages were searched, and no agency model of it under usable terms was found); no JAXA picture or model is in the file: JAXA's figures and artist's view (eoPortal) were looked at, and a visitor's CC0 photographs of JAXA's 1/50 model at Tsukuba were the layout's reference
Where the map uses it. NORAD 38337, GCOM-W1 (SHIZUKU), in the live saved data of 2026-10-12: JAXA's water-cycle satellite, the A-Train's Japanese member, carrying the 2.0 m spinning dish of AMSR2 on a gold truss above a gold box with two paddles of two by two panels. It wore the shape of its class (a box with two wings and a dish); public #1102
Licence note. CC0 (Syced's photographs of JAXA's 1/50 model in the Tsukuba Space Center exhibition hall, which the layout was read off: looked at, with credit; nothing of them is in the file); JAXA's pictures as shown by eoPortal were looked at only. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts). NO LOGO AND NO LETTERING is on the mesh.
References 2
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- Spacecraft models at Tsukuba Space Center 11.jpgSyced (Wikimedia Commons)CC0 (Syced; read 2026-10-26)
- Artefacts at Tsukuba Space Center exhibition hall 22.jpgSyced (Wikimedia Commons)CC0 (Syced; read 2026-10-26)
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:
GCOM-W 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=gcom-w" title="GCOM-W, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
