Geotail Magnetotail Satellite 3D Model

Geotail, a joint mission of Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and NASA, launched in 1992 to study the magnetotail, the long tail of Earth's magnetosphere stretched out by the solar wind. The model shows a drum-shaped body covered in blue-violet solar cells, long masts above and below and two lattice booms to the sides.

Technical details: about 9,400 polygons and 28,000 vertices, with 12 colour materials and no image textures. That is light enough for real-time, web and mobile use. It is scaled to 5 metres across its long booms, so the body is small, and the viewer opens close on the body.

The download includes GLB for web viewers and three.js, FBX for Unity, Unreal Engine and Maya, OBJ as a widely supported mesh, and BLEND for Blender. AiZity cleaned up the original (centred, grounded and renamed the parts) and converted it to these formats.

Good for magnetosphere and solar wind lessons, space cooperation stories, space weather explainers and orbit animations.

License: Public domain, made by NASA/Christopher R. Meaney (a U.S. government work). Free for personal and commercial use; please credit NASA. NASA logos and insignia are not included, and use must not suggest NASA endorsement.