Curiosity's entry capsule
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
Curiosity's entry capsule is one of the 203 3D models Space Radar made itself: a crewed craft or station, 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 6,236 triangles in a 60 kB glTF file, and is 4.5 m across at full scale.
It is part of the map’s library; no object on the live map is drawn with it today.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Diameter | 4.5 m |
| Height | 2.63 m |
NASA/JPL, Mars Science Laboratory Landing press kit, July 2012 (Wikimedia Commons, File:MSL_Press_Kit.pdf, public domain; opened 2026-11-03): 'Cruise vehicle dimensions (cruise stage and aeroshell with rover and descent stage inside): Diameter: 14 feet, 9 inches (4.5 meters); height: 9 feet, 8 inches (3 meters)'; 'the heat shield (14.8 feet, or 4.5 meters)'; 'the back shell jettisons two solid-tungsten weights'; 'a set of six weights ... about 55 pounds (25 kilograms)'. NOT PUBLISHED IN WHAT WAS READ, read off the photographs against the 4.5 m: the sphere-cone's 70 degree half angle (the usual for Mars aeroshells, an assumption) and 0.75 m depth, a nose radius of 0.6 m, the 0.1 m rim lip, the back shell's 1.45 m height and its 0.95 m top plate, the canister's 0.72 m radius and 0.3 m height (the whole 2.63 m is 0.37 m short of the press kit's 3 m, which includes the cruise stage's ring), the twelve plugs of 0.23 m, the hatch of 0.62 by 0.52 m, the four thruster windows. THE HEAT SHIELD'S 113 TILES are an assumption of count (about a hundred here): the layout is read off no picture. Colours are read off the photographs: the white paint, the charcoal tiles. (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 NASA's published dimensions and NASA/JPL photographs (public domain).
The full record
built by this project in code (tools/msl-builder/, release 1.7.9: msl.py); NO published 3D model of the aeroshell under a free licence was found (read 2026-11-03): NASA 3D Resources' file listing (the GitHub tree of nasa/NASA-3D-Resources) has the Curiosity rover (MSL) and the InSight cruise lander and stage, and nothing of MSL's aeroshell, cruise stage or descent stage; science.nasa.gov/3d-resources has the same; the MSL sky crane on Free3D is a third party's file with no licence read, so it was not used
Where the map uses it. NOTHING YET, as a route on the map: no object of the map is the Mars Science Laboratory's aeroshell, which was let go in 2012. It is the entry vehicle of the Curiosity Moment (release 1.7.9, internal #1058): the 4.5 m aeroshell as it flew, in two parts so the player can part them: the heat shield (the 70 degree sphere-cone of dark tiles with its rim lip) and the back shell (the white cone with its plugs, hatch, thruster windows and the parachute canister). Origin: the top of the canister; +Y runs to the heat shield's nose, the way the vehicle flies
Licence note. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts) and read off NASA photographs. Every picture it was compared with is listed under references; each is a NASA/JPL work in the public domain (Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-11-03), was only looked at, none was traced, copied or projected. NO LOGO, FLAG OR LETTERING is on the mesh.
References 3
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- Msl capsule cruiseStage.jpgNASA/JPL-CaltechPublic domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-11-03)
- MSL Capsule.jpgNASA/JPL-CaltechPublic domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-11-03)
- Curiosity Inside Aeroshell, Artist's Concept.jpgNASA/JPL-CaltechPublic domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech; Commons' LicenseShortName, read 2026-11-03)
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:
Curiosity's entry capsule 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=msl-entry" title="Curiosity's entry capsule, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
Galileo's atmospheric probe
Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified.
