FALCON 9 R/B

FALCON 9 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2024-02-20 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the HTS 113BT launch. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 280 km and 54,313 km with an inclination of 20.0°. It travels at approximately 12,387 km/h (3.44 km/s), completing one full orbit every 17 hours 5 minutes — that’s roughly 1.40 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.8025 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 280 km (perigee) and 54,313 km (apogee). It spends most of its 17 hours 5 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. With an inclination of 20.0°, FALCON 9 R/B passes over latitudes between 20.0°N and 20.0°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.