SL-14 R/B

SL-14 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 1996-02-19 from PKMTR on the Gonets-D1 No. 13/14/15 launch. With over 30 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 1,409 km and 1,478 km with an inclination of 82.6°. It travels at approximately 25,711 km/h (7.14 km/s), completing one full orbit every 115 minutes — that’s roughly 12.55 orbits per day. 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 1,444 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 412 active payloads and 204 tracked debris or rocket body fragments. With an inclination of 82.6°, SL-14 R/B passes over latitudes between 82.6°N and 82.6°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 1,286 active satellites in total, of which 374 share a similar altitude band with SL-14 R/B.