MetOp-SG A
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
MetOp-SG A 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 12,218 triangles in a 105 kB glTF file, and is 11 m across at full scale.
On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 65159, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Length | 6.5 m |
| Width | 2.97 m |
| Height | 3.46 m |
| Array | 24 m² |
| Wing | 11 m |
eoPortal, MetOp-SG, eoportal.org/satellite-missions/metop-sg, OPENED 2026-10-20: Satellite A stowed '6.5 (+0.55) x 2.97 x 3.46' m, '4,400 kg'; the RO's 'zenith, velocity, and anti-velocity antennas'. ESA, MetOp-SG facts and figures and MetOp-SG satellites, esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Meteorological_missions…, OPENED 2026-10-20: in orbit the solar array 'extends sideways more than 11 m', a '24 m sq' panel; B1's wing 'four-panel' (ESA's pictures of the A satellite show four too). OURS: the body 6.5 by 2.6 by 2.15 m with the dark payload module under the gold, every instrument's size and place as read off ESA's pictures, the panels 2.4 by 2.5 m, a yoke of 1.8 m, the wing's turn (55 degrees about its axis), 11.75 m from the wall to the tip (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 eoPortal's and ESA's published dimensions; compared with pictures by ESA (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) and Don-vip (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The full record
built by this project in code (release 1.3.0 stage W3-b's part library, lib.py and parts.py, and one script a craft, kept with the stage's notes in ~/space-radar-handoff/release-1.3/W3-b/build), from the cited dimensions and the pictures under `references`; no image-to-3D model was used, and no published mesh: NASA's 3D Resources and NASA Science have none of these craft; ESA publishes no model of them under terms that allow a derivative (its multimedia terms, the ESA Standard Licence, allow use for information and education, not an altered model); EUMETSAT publishes none (read 2026-10-20)
Where the map uses it. NORAD 65159, MetOp-SG A1, the first of EUMETSAT's and ESA's second-generation polar weather satellites (launched in August 2025), the sounding and imaging one: a gold box 6.5 m long, dark under it where METimage, Sentinel-5, the microwave sounder and 3MI look down, IASI-NG on top at one end, one wing of four panels out to the side. It was the class shape of a satellite. Not MetOp-B or -C (metop.glb); not the B satellites, which carry the scatterometer; public #993
Licence note. No ESA, EUMETSAT or Airbus picture or model is in the file. Compared with, with credit: ESA's pictures of the A satellite (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) and Don-vip's photographs of MetOp-SG A1 at Airbus in Toulouse (CC BY-SA 4.0), all on Wikimedia Commons; nothing of them is in the file. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts).
References 4
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- MetOp Second Generation A-type satellite ESA511182ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGOCC BY-SA 3.0 IGO (European Space Agency; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
- MetOp-SG-A instruments ESA511184ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGOCC BY-SA 3.0 IGO (European Space Agency; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
- MetOp Second Generation A-type satellite for weather forecasting ESA511189ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGOCC BY-SA 3.0 IGO (European Space Agency; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
- Metop-SG A1 avec IASI-NG-09Don-vip, CC BY-SA 4.0CC BY-SA 4.0 (Don-vip, own work for Wikimedia France; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
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:
MetOp-SG A 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=metop-sg-a" title="MetOp-SG A, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
FORMOSAT-7 (COSMIC-2)
Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified.