HXMT (Insight)
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
HXMT (Insight) 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 16,602 triangles in a 158 kB glTF file, and is 10 m across at full scale.
On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 42758, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Platform | 2 × 2 × 1.7 m |
| Payload | 1.9 × 1.6 × 1 m |
| Height | 2.84 m |
| He module diameter | 0.19 m |
| He modules | 18 |
| Wing | 3.5 × 1.75 m |
| Span | 10.1 m |
CITED: total mass 'about 2500 kg', 'two cabins, the payload cabin and the platform cabin. The payload cabin is on the top of the satellite, in which all the telescopes are installed. The telescopes are all aligned to one direction... There is a sun-shielding board on one side of the satellite' (Zhang et al., 'Overview to the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) Satellite', arxiv.org/abs/1910.09613, Sect. 2.1, OPENED 2026-11-03); 18 HE phoswich modules 'with a diameter of 19 cm', 15 collimators of 1.1 x 5.7 deg (at 0, +60, -60 deg), two of 5.7 x 5.7 deg and one blind, three ME boxes and three LE boxes (same paper, Sect. 2.2 and Table 2); an ME box with an 'integral radiant cooling plate', a 'screwed radiant cooling plate', mid and side collimators and a cube mirror (same paper, Fig. 6); 'the two star sensors installed on the main support structure' and 'a sun shield... always faces the sun' (arxiv.org/abs/2311.06529, Sect. 1 and 2, OPENED 2026-11-03); 'Payloads onboard HXMT, Size: 1900 x 1600 x 1000 mm' (slide 5, Zhang Shu, 'Introduction on HXMT Project...', IACHEC, the file linked under references, OPENED 2026-11-03: read as the payload cabin's envelope); 'Dimensions 2.0 x 2.0 x 2.8 m' and 'Launch mass 2,800 kg' (the Wikipedia article 'Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope', infobox, OPENED 2026-11-03: it names no source, and is read as the craft as launched, 2.0 m across the platform and 2.8 m tall with the payload and its shield; the two masses differ and the paper's 2500 kg is the one cited); 'based on the JianBing 3 imagery reconnaissance satellite series platform' (same article). ESTIMATED, NOT CITED, READ OFF THE PICTURES: the platform's 1.7 m height (from IHEP's rendering and the CAD pictures); THE SOLAR ARRAY: two wings of three panels, each panel 1.17 x 1.75 m (a wing 3.5 m long and 10.1 m tip to tip, standing 0.55 m off the platform) is an ESTIMATE against the platform's 2.0 m width and the 19 cm modules, because NO PAGE OPENED GIVES THE ARRAY'S SIZE (the rendering shows three panels a wing; each panel's 2 x 3 sub-rectangles are read from it); the sun shield's 1.8 x 1.04 m; the heights of the instruments above the deck (0.45 to 0.5 m); the LE and ME boxes' sizes; the deck's twelve sides and the packing radii of the HE modules (six at 0.30 m and twelve at 0.58 m from the middle: read from arXiv 2311.06529 Fig. 6 and the CAD); every piece of hardware on the platform's faces, and the whole of the -X and back faces, which no picture opened shows (put there by judgement). (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 of Insight-HXMT and pictures by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CC BY 4.0, 'HXMT rendering.jpg') and Zhang et al. (arXiv 2311.06529, CC BY 4.0).
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 (CAS and IHEP publish none; NASA's 3D Resources has none of this craft; read 2026-11-03)
Where the map uses it. Insight-HXMT, 'Huiyan' (NORAD 42758), China's first X-ray astronomy satellite (launched 2017-06-15; hard X-ray modulation telescope, 1 to 250 keV): the craft's own shape instead of the generic space telescope it wore; public #967
Licence note. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts) and read off pictures. Pictures used: IHEP's artist's rendering (CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, credit below) and the payload figures of arXiv 2311.06529 (CC BY 4.0): looked at, with credit; nothing of them is in the file. Four more sets of CAD pictures (two talks by Zhang Shuang-Nan and Zhang Shu of IHEP, the overview paper arXiv 1910.09613) have no free licence stated or an arXiv non-exclusive one: LOOKED AT ONLY, not fetched into any deliverable. NO LOGO AND NO LETTERING is on the mesh.
References 5
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- HXMT rendering.jpgInstitute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of SciencesCC BY 4.0 (Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-11-03)
- Insight-HXMT on-orbit thermal control status and thermal deformation impact analysis (arXiv 2311.06529)Zhang et al., arXiv 2311.06529CC BY 4.0 (arXiv's licence line for the paper, read 2026-11-03)
- Highlights of the Insight-HXMT satellite (Zhang Shuang-Nan, IHEP, 2020-07-29)Zhang Shuang-Nan, Institute of High Energy Physics, CASnot stated; looked at, not reproduced
- Introduction on HXMT Project, Ground Segment, Calibration and Ground Facility (Zhang Shu, IHEP, IACHEC)Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS; Tsinghua University; China Academy of Space Technologynot stated; looked at, not reproduced
- Overview to the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) Satellite (arXiv 1910.09613)S. Zhang et al., Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 63, 249502 (2020)arXiv non-exclusive distribution licence; looked at and cited as facts, not reproduced
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:
HXMT (Insight) 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=hxmt" title="HXMT (Insight), 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
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