Space Radar Models

IRIS

Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified.

Turn it in 3D

IRIS, 3D model, three-quarter view

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

  • IRIS, three-quarter viewThree-quarter view
  • IRIS, from the sideFrom the side
  • IRIS, from behindFrom behind
  • IRIS, from aboveFrom above

About this model

IRIS is one of the 203 3D models Space Radar made itself: a space telescope, 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 13,298 triangles in a 114 kB glTF file, and is 3.6 m across at full scale.

On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 39197, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.

Dimensions and their sources

MeasureValue
Length2.18 m
Span3.6 m
Panel length1.3 m
Panel width0.6 m

De Pontieu et al. 2014, Solar Physics 289:2733 (arXiv:1401.2491), OPENED 2026-10-20: 'about 2.18 m from the back of the spacecraft bus to the front of the telescope', 'The solar arrays deployed are 3.6 m tip to tip', 'The two solar arrays measure 0.6 x 1.3 m each, with a total surface area of 1.7 m2', 'a 19-cm Cassegrain telescope'. eoPortal (eoportal.org/satellite-missions/iris): '~ 2.18 m in length, and ~ 3.7 m across'; built 3.6 m, the paper's. Panels built 1.30 x 0.65 m (the 1.7 m2 the paper gives needs 0.65). OURS: the bus 0.98 m across and 0.46 m long, the tube 0.30 m, the instrument box, every small part (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 NASA's and De Pontieu et al. (2014)'s published dimensions; compared with NASA's photographs (public domain).

The full record

built by this project in code (release 1.3.0 stage W3-a's part library, lib.py, and one script a craft, kept with the stage's notes); no image-to-3D model was used, and no published mesh: NASA's 3D Resources (1 583 paths) and NASA Science's 3D models have none of this craft (read 2026-10-20)

Where the map uses it. NORAD 39197 (IRIS), by id; public #1090. Sun-pointing: built to the app's axes, the aperture and the cells on +Y, the wings along X

Licence note. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts). The pictures it was compared with are NASA's (public domain) and figures 7 and 8 of De Pontieu et al. 2014 (CC BY 4.0); none is in the file.

References 4

What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.

  1. IRIS spacecraft modelNASAPublic domain (NASA; Commons LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
  2. IRIS satelliteNASA's Goddard Space Flight CenterPublic domain (NASA; Commons LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
  3. KSC-2013-2109NASA/Randy BeaudoinPublic domain (NASA)
  4. De Pontieu et al. 2014, The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), Solar Physics 289:2733, figures 7 and 8De Pontieu et al. / LMSALCC BY 4.0 (Solar Physics open access)

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:

IRIS 3D model by Space Radar (spaceradar.ai), MIT License

Any 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=iris" title="IRIS, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>

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