BREEZE-M R/B

BREEZE-M R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 2004-08-04 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on the Amazonas launch. With over 22 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 3,219 km and 35,494 km with an inclination of 8.9°. It travels at approximately 14,170 km/h (3.94 km/s), completing one full orbit every 11 hours 25 minutes — that’s roughly 2.10 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.6272 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like BREEZE-M 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.

BREEZE-M R/B orbits at an average altitude of 19,357 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 BREEZE-M 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 8.9°, BREEZE-M R/B passes over latitudes between 8.9°N and 8.9°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,286 active satellites in total.