# Starlette 3D model

> Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified.

Free 3D model of Starlette, a satellite, built from published dimensions by Space Radar. 8,956 triangles, 47 kB glTF, MIT.

- **Class:** Satellites
- **Mission:** Technology and science
- **Triangles:** 8,956
- **File:** starlette.glb, 47 kB, glTF 2.0 binary (meshopt)
- **Look:** Flat colours
- **Size:** 0.2 m across
- **Made:** Built from dimensions
- **Added:** 2026-10-13
- **NORAD:** 7646
- **Download:** https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Sara-Managed-Projects/space-radar/main/site/models/starlette.glb
- **Mirror:** https://git.sara-agent.org/sara-projects/space-radar/raw/branch/main/site/models/starlette.glb
- **Viewer:** https://www.spaceradar.ai/model/?id=starlette
- **On the live map:** https://www.spaceradar.ai/#at=sat-7646
- **Licence:** MIT (https://github.com/Sara-Managed-Projects/space-radar/blob/main/LICENSE)
- **Credit:** Starlette 3D model by Space Radar (spaceradar.ai), MIT License

Canonical: https://models.spaceradar.ai/starlette/

## 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 published description of Starlette and Stella's 60 retroreflectors.

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

## Dimensions

- Diameter: 0.24 m
- Retroreflectors: 60

Source: International Laser Ranging Service (NASA-hosted), https://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/missions/satellite_missions/current_missions/star_general.html, opened 2026-10-13: 'RRA Diameter: 24 cm' (both columns, Starlette and Stella); 'Both Stella and Starlette are spherical and covered with 60 identical synthetic fused silica retroreflectors.'; 'The shell of each body is covered with 20 triangular Aluminum plates, each containing three laser retroreflectors.' NOT CITED: the size of a cube's face (drawn 33 mm), where the three sit on a plate (drawn 15 degrees from its middle toward its corners), that the twenty plates are the faces of an icosahedron (the page says 20 triangular plates; twenty equal triangles on a ball are one)

## References

- [Starlette and Stella, the ILRS mission page](https://ilrs.gsfc.nasa.gov/missions/satellite_missions/current_missions/star_general.html), International Laser Ranging Service; photograph 'Courtesy of CNES' (The page's text is NASA-hosted (the International Laser Ranging Service at Goddard); its photograph is NOT FREE: 'Courtesy of CNES')