SL-14 R/B

SL-14 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 1978-10-26 from PKMTR on the Meteor-2 GVM launch. With over 48 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 1,687 km and 1,701 km with an inclination of 82.5°. It travels at approximately 25,309 km/h (7.03 km/s), completing one full orbit every 2 hours — that’s roughly 11.97 orbits per day. Its near-circular orbit (eccentricity close to zero) means it maintains a very consistent altitude throughout each revolution. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. Spent rocket bodies like SL-14 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.

SL-14 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 1,694 km in the uppermost reaches of Low Earth Orbit. At this altitude, orbital decay is effectively zero without active deorbiting, and coverage footprints are significantly larger than lower LEO, though at the cost of higher latency. Within ±50 km of SL-14 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 19 active payloads and 64 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 82.5°, SL-14 R/B passes over latitudes between 82.5°N and 82.5°S, providing near-global coverage including the polar regions. Polar and near-polar orbits are used for reconnaissance, weather monitoring and Earth-observation missions that need to image every part of the planet. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,287 active satellites in total, of which 7 share a similar altitude band with SL-14 R/B.