ARIANE 42P R/B

ARIANE 42P R/B is a spent rocket body associated with France, launched on 1992-08-10 from Guiana Space Centre, Kourou on the Topex-Poseidon launch. With over 34 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 1,291 km and 1,408 km with an inclination of 66.1°. It travels at approximately 25,867 km/h (7.19 km/s), completing one full orbit every 113 minutes — that’s roughly 12.78 orbits per day. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. Spent rocket bodies like ARIANE 42P 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.

ARIANE 42P R/B orbits at an average altitude of 1,350 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 ARIANE 42P R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 28 active payloads and 145 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 66.1°, ARIANE 42P R/B passes over latitudes between 66.1°N and 66.1°S, covering most populated land masses in both hemispheres. This mid-inclination band balances global coverage with efficient launch energy requirements. France operates approximately 115 active satellites in total, of which 2 share a similar altitude band with ARIANE 42P R/B.