FALCON 9 R/B

FALCON 9 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2022-12-16 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the O3b mPOWER 1/2 launch. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 2,779 km and 6,991 km with an inclination of 9.6°. It travels at approximately 21,423 km/h (5.95 km/s), completing one full orbit every 3 hours 18 minutes — that’s roughly 7.26 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1871 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 orbits at an average altitude of 4,885 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 FALCON 9 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads and 4 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 9.6°, FALCON 9 R/B passes over latitudes between 9.6°N and 9.6°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.