FALCON 9 R/B

FALCON 9 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2021-01-08 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the Turksat 5A launch. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 273 km and 47,383 km with an inclination of 15.5°. It travels at approximately 13,079 km/h (3.63 km/s), completing one full orbit every 14 hours 31 minutes — that’s roughly 1.65 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7800 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like FALCON 9 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.

FALCON 9 R/B follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 273 km (perigee) and 47,383 km (apogee). It spends most of its 14 hours 31 minutes 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 FALCON 9 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 2 active payloads and 2 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 15.5°, FALCON 9 R/B passes over latitudes between 15.5°N and 15.5°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.