ANIK C3 R/B(PAM-D)

ANIK C3 R/B(PAM-D) is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1982-11-11 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the OV-102 PAM deploy launch. With over 44 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 353 km and 32,449 km with an inclination of 23.3°. It travels at approximately 15,062 km/h (4.18 km/s), completing one full orbit every 9 hours 30 minutes — that’s roughly 2.53 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7047 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like ANIK C3 R/B(PAM-D) are among the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris and are priority targets for collision avoidance manoeuvres and future active debris removal efforts.

ANIK C3 R/B(PAM-D) orbits at an average altitude of 16,401 km in Medium Earth Orbit, the region between LEO and GEO (2,000–35,786 km). MEO’s higher altitude gives each satellite a much larger ground footprint than LEO, meaning fewer spacecraft are needed for global coverage — but signal latency is higher and radiation from the Van Allen belts is a significant design constraint. With an inclination of 23.3°, ANIK C3 R/B(PAM-D) passes over latitudes between 23.3°N and 23.3°S, covering the tropical and temperate zones where most of the world’s population resides. Low-to-mid inclination orbits are efficient to reach from equatorial and mid-latitude launch sites. United States operates approximately 12,413 active satellites in total.