ATLAS 2 CENTAUR R/B

ATLAS 2 CENTAUR R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1991-12-07 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the Eutelsat II F-3 launch. With over 35 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 916 km and 41,176 km with an inclination of 17.2°. It travels at approximately 13,727 km/h (3.81 km/s), completing one full orbit every 12 hours 33 minutes — that’s roughly 1.91 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7342 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like ATLAS 2 CENTAUR 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.

ATLAS 2 CENTAUR R/B follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 916 km (perigee) and 41,176 km (apogee). It spends most of its 12 hours 33 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. Within ±50 km of ATLAS 2 CENTAUR R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 2 active payloads and 20 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 17.2°, ATLAS 2 CENTAUR R/B passes over latitudes between 17.2°N and 17.2°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, of which 2 share a similar altitude band with ATLAS 2 CENTAUR R/B.