ATLAS AGENA R/B

ATLAS AGENA R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1968-08-06 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the CANYON 1 launch. After more than 58 years in orbit, it is one of the longest-surviving objects in the space catalogue. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 31,132 km and 39,610 km with an inclination of 4.4°. It travels at approximately 11,125 km/h (3.09 km/s), completing one full orbit every 23 hours 35 minutes — that’s roughly 1.02 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1016 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 ATLAS AGENA 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 AGENA R/B orbits at an average altitude of 35,371 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 AGENA R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads and 9 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 4.4°, ATLAS AGENA R/B passes over latitudes between 4.4°N and 4.4°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. United States operates approximately 12,413 active satellites in total.