CZ-3 R/B

CZ-3 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with China, launched on 1986-02-01 from Xichang, China on the DFH-2 launch. With over 40 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 407 km and 34,985 km with an inclination of 30.6°. It travels at approximately 14,651 km/h (4.07 km/s), completing one full orbit every 10 hours 20 minutes — that’s roughly 2.32 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7184 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 17,696 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 1 active payload and 8 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 30.6°, CZ-3 R/B passes over latitudes between 30.6°N and 30.6°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.