ARABSAT 1B R/B(PAM-D)

ARABSAT 1B R/B(PAM-D) is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1985-06-17 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the OV-103 PAM deploy/FF launch. With over 41 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 381 km and 33,642 km with an inclination of 27.1°. It travels at approximately 14,864 km/h (4.13 km/s), completing one full orbit every 9 hours 53 minutes — that’s roughly 2.43 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7112 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like ARABSAT 1B 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.

ARABSAT 1B R/B(PAM-D) orbits at an average altitude of 17,012 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. Within ±50 km of ARABSAT 1B R/B(PAM-D)’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads and 8 tracked debris or rocket body fragments. This is a relatively sparse altitude band, containing less than 1% of all active satellites. With an inclination of 27.1°, ARABSAT 1B R/B(PAM-D) passes over latitudes between 27.1°N and 27.1°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.