SL-14 R/B

SL-14 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 1985-10-24 from PKMTR on the Meteor-3 No. 2 launch. With over 41 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 1,222 km and 1,249 km with an inclination of 82.6°. It travels at approximately 26,060 km/h (7.24 km/s), completing one full orbit every 110 minutes — that’s roughly 13.07 orbits per day. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. Spent rocket bodies like SL-14 R/B are among the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris and are priority targets for collision avoidance manoeuvres and future active debris removal efforts.

SL-14 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 1,236 km in the uppermost reaches of Low Earth Orbit. At this altitude, orbital decay is effectively zero without active deorbiting, and coverage footprints are significantly larger than lower LEO, though at the cost of higher latency. Within ±50 km of SL-14 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 523 active payloads and 304 tracked debris or rocket body fragments — notable neighbours include ONEWEB-0012, ONEWEB-0010, ONEWEB-0008. With an inclination of 82.6°, SL-14 R/B passes over latitudes between 82.6°N and 82.6°S, providing near-global coverage including the polar regions. Polar and near-polar orbits are used for reconnaissance, weather monitoring and Earth-observation missions that need to image every part of the planet. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,287 active satellites in total, of which 7 share a similar altitude band with SL-14 R/B.