CZ-3 R/B

CZ-3 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with China, launched on 1984-04-08 from Xichang, China on the STW launch. With over 42 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 430 km and 34,618 km with an inclination of 31.0°. It travels at approximately 14,703 km/h (4.08 km/s), completing one full orbit every 10 hours 13 minutes — that’s roughly 2.35 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7154 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like CZ-3 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.

CZ-3 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 17,524 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 CZ-3 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads and 11 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 31.0°, CZ-3 R/B passes over latitudes between 31.0°N and 31.0°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. China operates approximately 1,221 active satellites in total.