TIMED
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
TIMED 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 16,058 triangles in a 148 kB glTF file, and is 12 m across at full scale.
On Space Radar’s live map it is drawn for the object with NORAD catalogue number 26998, where its published orbit puts it now. Open it on the map.
Dimensions and their sources
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Height | 2.72 m |
| Depth | 1.2 m |
| Span | 11.73 m |
| Panel length | 1.253 m |
| Panel width | 1.197 m |
TIMED QuickFacts (spdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/data/timed/documentation/mdc/QuickFacts.p…), OPENED 2026-10-20: '8.93 feet (2.72 meters) high', '38.5 feet (11.73 meters) wide (solar arrays deployed)', '3.93 feet (1.2 meters) deep'. Kusnierkiewicz, APL Tech. Digest 24(2): 'two rotating wings, each consisting of four solar panels'; 'a graphite-epoxy optical bench on the top of the spacecraft where the two star trackers and four TIDI telescopes are mounted'; GUVI 'on the underside of the spacecraft, inside an adapter ring'; SABER 'on the side panel of the spacecraft that is always kept facing away from the Sun'. CDR 13: solar panel '49.34 L x 47.12 W x 5/8 H', '20 Deg Panel Droop'; deck '57.50' x '46.00'; optical bench '45.000' x '24.000'. Built span 11.97 m: the cited panels and droop on a short yoke (2 % over the cited 11.73 m). OURS: the shapes of SEE, the profiler, SABER's housing, the yoke, the mast heights (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 NASA's and APL's published dimensions; compared with NASA's render (public domain).
The full record
built by this project in code (release 1.3.0 stage W3-a's part library, lib.py, and one script a craft, kept with the stage's notes); no image-to-3D model was used, and no published mesh: NASA's 3D Resources (1 583 paths) and NASA Science's 3D models have none of this craft (read 2026-10-20)
Where the map uses it. NORAD 26998 (TIMED), by id; public #1091. Nadir-pointing: built to the app's axes, GUVI and the nadir antennas on +Z, the wings along X with their cells to +Y
Licence note. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from NASA's and APL's published numbers (facts). The one picture that is free to show is NASA's render on Commons (public domain); APL's photographs and the CDR drawings were looked at only and are in nothing.
References 3
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- TIMEDNASAPublic domain (NASA; Commons LicenseShortName, read 2026-10-20)
- JHU/APL Technical Digest 24(2), the TIMED issue (Vernon; Yee; Kusnierkiewicz)JHU/APLJHU/APL; looked at only
- TIMED Critical Design Review, 13 Mechanical Systems (1997)JHU/APLNASA/JHU-APL; looked at only
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:
TIMED 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=timed" title="TIMED, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
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Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified.