Vostok 3KA
Shape built from published dimensions and pictures; details simplified.
Turn it in 3D
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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
Vostok 3KA 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 31,712 triangles in a 261 kB glTF file, and is 4.4 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 |
|---|---|
| Sphere diameter | 2.3 m |
| Instrument module length | 2.25 m |
| Instrument module diameter | 2.43 m |
| Length | 4.4 m |
Wikipedia, 'Vostok (spacecraft)' (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_(spacecraft)), read 2026-10-28: the descent module 'spherical, 2.3 m', 2 460 kg; the instrument module 'length 2.25 m', 'diameter 2.43 m', '12 pressure bottles holding 20 kg of cold nitrogen gas at 2 200 PSI', '16 x 5 N' attitude thrusters, the main retro engine 'S5.4 (TDU), 397 kg, thrust 15.83 kN', burn 'one minute'; the ejection at 'about 7 000 m'. ru.wikipedia, 'Восток (космический корабль)', read 2026-10-28: 'длина 4,4 м без антенн', 'диаметром 2,3 м', two windows ('one on the entry hatch just above the cosmonaut's head, the other in the floor near his feet', with its own orientation device), the instrument section 'conical, maximum diameter 2,43 m'. Astronautix, 'Vostok' (astronautix.com/v/vostok.html), read 2026-10-28: 'two windows: one above the cosmonaut's head in the entry hatch, and one at his feet'. NOT PUBLISHED on any page opened, so READ OFF THE PHOTOGRAPHS and ILLUSTRATIVE: the opening's diameter (0.88 m, with a 0.60 m flange), the hatch's porthole (0.25 m), the coat's thickness at the rim, the positions of the opening (32 degrees above the equator) and of the Vzor window (opposite, 28 degrees below), the cone's and the drum's heights (1.2 m and 0.55 m, which with the engine's mouth make the cited 2.25 m), the nitrogen spheres' size (0.35 m) and ring (2.04 m across), the jets, the sensor discs, the antennas' lengths (hairpins 0.78 m, whips 1.6 m), every strap and cable. The wrapped, grey-silver skin is read off the full-size copies (the flown capsules are charred: the coat's colour before the entry is NOT documented in any picture of flight hardware opened). (read 2026-10-28)
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 published dimensions; compared with photographs of the flown capsules and the full-size copies at the RKK Energia museum, Le Bourget, Speyer and the Science Museum (CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA).
The full record
built by this project in code (tools/vostok-builder/, release 1.5.0 stage r15-c2: vostok3ka.py); no agency or museum 3D model of this craft exists under a free licence (read 2026-10-29): NASA 3D Resources' file listing (1 583 paths, the GitHub tree of nasa/NASA-3D-Resources) has nothing of Vostok or the R-7 (its one Soyuz is the Apollo-Soyuz one); the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum records show physical models only (its 3D site was down); Wikimedia Commons has no 3D file of any of them; the downloadable meshes a web search found (CGTrader, MyMiniFactory, RenderHub, Unity) are sold or personal-use only. So it is built, as the quality bar says: from opened dimensions and many pictures of the flown hardware and the museum copies. No image-to-3D model was used and no published mesh.
Where the map uses it. MOMENTS (internal spec 0079, stage C2, internal #1051): the Vostok 3KA spacecraft of Gagarin's flight, 12 April 1961: the 2.3 m descent sphere (SA) and the instrument module (PA) with its TDU-1 retro engine, in the parts they come apart in. Origin: the lower interface of the instrument module, +Y up the axis with the sphere on top; it stands on the launcher's adapter at `attach.vostok-3ka` of the row `r7-8k72k`. No record draws it yet.
Licence note. The shape is this project's, under this repository's licence, built from published numbers (facts). Every picture it was compared with is listed under references; each was only looked at, none was traced, copied or projected, and the share-alike ones (CC BY-SA) are credited all the same.
References 12
What the shape was compared with. None of these pictures is in the file.
- Vostok-1 Spacecraft 02.jpgStolbovskyCC BY 4.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Vostok-1 Spacecraft 01.jpgStolbovskyCC BY 4.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Vostok-1-musee-du-Bourget-P.jpgPlineCC BY-SA 3.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Full-Size Mock-up of Vostok 1 capsule at Musee de l'air et de l'espace, Le Bourget, France (53431558341).jpgAlan WilsonCC BY-SA 2.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Vostok (Memorial Museum of Astronautics).JPGArmaelCC0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Vostok spacecraft replica.jpgPascal (Flickr pasukaru76)CC0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Gagarin Capsule.jpgSiefkinDRCC BY-SA 3.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Vostok1 descent module.jpgErrabeeCC BY-SA 2.5 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Cosmonauts Exhibition, Science Museum, London, February 2016 (03).JPGArdfernCC BY 4.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Vostok 5 reentry capsule 03.jpgStolbovskyCC BY 4.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Крышка люка корабля-спутника "Восток".jpgEkaterina MirfasolovaCC BY-SA 4.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
- Vostok spacecraft- cabin layout.jpg(own work, Commons)CC BY-SA 3.0 (Commons, read 2026-10-28)
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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:
Vostok 3KA 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=vostok-3ka" title="Vostok 3KA, 3D model by Space Radar" width="600" height="450" loading="lazy" style="border:0;max-width:100%"></iframe>Related models
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