IXPE
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
IXPE 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 7,516 triangles in a 50 kB glTF file, and is 5.2 m across at full scale.
On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 49954, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Length | 5.2 m |
| Bus diameter | 1.1 m |
| Array span | 2.7 m |
| Focal length | 4 m |
| Optics diameter | 0.3 m |
| Boom canister | 0.3 m |
eoPortal, eoportal.org/satellite-missions/ixpe, opened 2026-10-13: 'When deployed, IXPE is 5.2 m from the bottom of the spacecraft structure to the top of the payload and is 1.1 m in diameter. The solar panels span 2.7 m when deployed.'; 'The spacecraft hexagonal structure is built up from machined aluminum plates'; 'comprises a 4-m-focal length Mirror Module Assembly'; '24 concentrically nested X-ray-mirror shells in each 300-mm-diameter optics module'; 'The three IXPE MMAs are mounted to a MMSS (Metallic Mirror Module Support Structure) deck'; the deck 'interfaces with the coilable, deployable boom through a TTR (Tip/Tilt/Rotation) mechanism'; the boom stows 'into a 12-inch (0.3-meter) canister'; 'The deployable boom is covered with a thermal sock'; 'The payload uses a deployable X-ray shield to prevent off-axis X-rays from striking the detectors'. NOT CITED, read off NASA's two pictures: the bus's 0.75 m height, the mirror modules' 0.7 m length and where the three stand, the array's 1.5 m height and its six strips, the detector units' size, the shields' 0.5 m, the boom's 0.24 m side and 12 bays (read 2026-10-13)
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 and NASA illustrations of IXPE.
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 NASA pictures under `references`; no image-to-3D model was used, and no published mesh (NASA's 3D Resources, science.nasa.gov/3d-resources and github.com/nasa/NASA-3D-Resources, searched 2026-10-13, has none of this craft)
Where the map uses it. NORAD 49954 (IXPE), in the whole active catalogue: NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, three mirror modules four metres from their detectors on a coilable boom. It had no route and was drawn as the generic satellite, a box with a dish; public #965. NuSTAR's mast (row `nustar`) is another telescope and is not worn by it
Licence note. Public domain (the NASA pictures it was drawn from); the shape is this project's, under this repository's licence
References 2
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- IXPE spacecraft modelNASAPublic domain (NASA)
- IXPE artist renditionNASAPublic domain (NASA)
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:
IXPE 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=ixpe" title="IXPE, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
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