IUS R/B(2)

IUS R/B(2) is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1999-07-23 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the OV-102 IUS deploy launch. With over 27 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 1,084 km and 72,233 km with an inclination of 27.8°. It travels at approximately 10,957 km/h (3.04 km/s), completing one full orbit every 24.7 hours — that’s roughly 0.97 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.8267 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. At geostationary altitude, there is no meaningful atmospheric drag — this object will remain in orbit indefinitely unless actively deorbited. Spent rocket bodies like IUS R/B(2) are among the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris and are priority targets for collision avoidance manoeuvres and future active debris removal efforts.

IUS R/B(2) follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 1,084 km (perigee) and 72,233 km (apogee). It spends most of its 24.7 hours orbital period near apogee, effectively loitering over a region of interest before rapidly sweeping through perigee — a profile used for high-latitude communications (Molniya orbits), early-warning systems and magnetospheric science. Within ±50 km of IUS R/B(2)’s average altitude, there are currently 7 active payloads and 3 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 27.8°, IUS R/B(2) passes over latitudes between 27.8°N and 27.8°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.