QZS-3
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
QZS-3 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 17,150 triangles in a 77 kB glTF file, and is 19 m across at full scale.
On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 42917, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Body 1 | 2.4 m |
| Body 2 | 2.4 m |
| Height | 5.41 m |
| Wing | 8.3 m |
| Span | 19 m |
| Depth with reflectors | 7.1 m |
| Solar array area | 14.9 m² |
| L ant cover | 2.1 m² |
| Reflector 1 | 9.1 m² |
| Reflector 2 | 0.8 m² |
Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 'QZS-3 Satellite Information', SPI-QZS3_F (March 28, 2025, revision F), qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/khp0mf0000000wuf-att/spi-qzs3_f…, OPENED 2026-11-04 (the list it hangs from: qzss.go.jp/en/technical/qzssinfo/index.html), section 1: 'QZS-3 GEO satellite'; section 6 'Geometry', 'Figure 4 Satellite dimensions' '(Unit: mm)', whose dimension lines read 8300, 2400, 8300 (each wing, the body, the other wing), 5410 (height) and 7100 (the extent along X with the reflectors out), the figure's two reflectors named 'Reflector-1' and 'Reflector-2'; Table 4 'Optical properties': 'Reflector-1 (Front) 9.1' m2, 'Reflector-2 (Front) 0.8' m2, 'SAP 14.9' m2 on each Y face, '+Y MLI 5.0, Radiator 5.1', '-Y MLI 4.8, Radiator 5.3', '+X MLI 10.1', '-X MLI 10.1', '+Z MLI 3.0', 'L-ANT Cover 2.1', 'L1S/Sb/L5S-ANT Covers 0.4', '-Z MLI 5.6'; its note 3: 'Reflector-1 is oriented towards the direction displaced from +Z axis by approximately +5deg and -25deg around +X and +Y axes respectively. Its area corresponds to the area projected along the direction.'; its note 4: 'Reflector-2 is oriented towards the direction displaced from +Z axis by approximately +20deg and +15deg around +X and +Y axes respectively.'; section 2: 'The +Z-axis is oriented to the bore sight direction of the L-ANT antenna. The +Y-axis is parallel to the rotation axis of the solar panels'; section 3 'Attitude Law': 'Yaw steering mode: The +z-axis is pointing to the Earth. The y-axis is oriented perpendicular to the plane made up by the Sun, Earth and satellite.' eoPortal, eoportal.org/satellite-missions/qzss, OPENED 2026-10-13: 'QZS-3 uses a flat patch antenna'. DERIVED: the two normals from those angles, (-0.421, -0.087, 0.903) and (0.243, -0.342, 0.908) in the Cabinet Office's axes; the 2.1 m2 cover read as a regular octagon 1.59 m across; the bus as for QZS-2 (a box 2.4 x 2.4 x 4.25 m, wings of two 3.2 x 2.33 m panels on 1.9 m yokes). READ OFF THE FIGURE AND THE PICTURES: Reflector-1 an oval about 3 m by 4 m hung from the bottom of the +X face and standing out to the side and up, its far rim about 5 m from the axis; Reflector-2 a small dish on the -X face near the top; the octagonal patch; the tiles; the black blanket. OURS: the dishes' depth and exact size and how they are held (two arms), the tiles, the deck's corner units. The reflectors are drawn solid and bronze; the real ones are a thin mesh, which the pictures show as a brown dish. (read 2026-11-04)
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 the dimensions in the Cabinet Office of Japan's satellite information; compared with renders from the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System website (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 (NASA's 3D Resources on GitHub, 1 583 paths read 2026-10-13, has none of this craft; the survey of 2026-10-13 found no agency model of it under usable terms)
Where the map uses it. any record of klass satellite named QZS-3 (1 record in the live saved data of 2026-11-04: QZS-3 (MICHIBIKI-3), NORAD 42917): the geostationary Michibiki, the QZSS bus with a flat octagonal L-band antenna, a 9.1 m2 reflector hung from the bottom of one face and a 0.8 m2 reflector near the top of the other. The Cabinet Office draws it 7.1 m from one reflector's rim to the other's. It was, and while this file is on its way still is, the family navigation box at Galileo's size; internal #751
Licence note. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts). The Cabinet Office's renders compared with are CC BY 4.0 and are not in the file. The Cabinet Office's dimension drawing was READ FOR ITS NUMBERS AND LAYOUT and is not reproduced. NO LOGO AND NO LETTERING is on the mesh.
References 2
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- QZS-3 CG02Cabinet Office, Government of JapanCC BY 4.0 (Cabinet Office of Japan, Quasi-Zenith Satellite System website, qzss.go.jp)
- QZS-3 CG05Cabinet Office, Government of JapanCC BY 4.0 (Cabinet Office of Japan, Quasi-Zenith Satellite System website, qzss.go.jp)
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:
QZS-3 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=qzs-3" title="QZS-3, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
