ATLAS 2A CENTAUR R/B

ATLAS 2A CENTAUR R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1996-12-18 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the INMARSAT III F3 launch. With over 30 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 1,075 km and 35,718 km with an inclination of 22.3°. It travels at approximately 14,442 km/h (4.01 km/s), completing one full orbit every 10 hours 47 minutes — that’s roughly 2.23 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.6994 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like ATLAS 2A CENTAUR 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.

ATLAS 2A CENTAUR R/B orbits at an average altitude of 18,397 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 ATLAS 2A CENTAUR R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 1 active payload and 19 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 22.3°, ATLAS 2A CENTAUR R/B passes over latitudes between 22.3°N and 22.3°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.