BREEZE-M R/B

BREEZE-M R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 2019-10-09 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on the MEV-1/Eutelsat-5WB launch. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 9,138 km and 66,239 km with an inclination of 23.8°. It travels at approximately 10,828 km/h (3.01 km/s), completing one full orbit every 25.6 hours — that’s roughly 0.94 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.6480 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 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 follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 9,138 km (perigee) and 66,239 km (apogee). It spends most of its 25.6 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 BREEZE-M R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 1 active payload 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 23.8°, BREEZE-M R/B passes over latitudes between 23.8°N and 23.8°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. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,286 active satellites in total.