DELTA 2 DEB

DELTA 2 DEB is a tracked piece of space debris attributed to United States, launched on 1994-03-10 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the Navstar GPS SVN 36 launch. With over 32 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 233 km and 3,731 km with an inclination of 34.5°. It travels at approximately 24,869 km/h (6.91 km/s), completing one full orbit every 2 hours 7 minutes — that’s roughly 11.36 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.2094 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. As orbital debris, DELTA 2 DEB poses a potential collision risk to operational satellites in nearby orbits and is continuously monitored by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network and other tracking systems.

DELTA 2 DEB orbits at an average altitude of 1,982 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 DELTA 2 DEB’s average altitude, there are currently 8 active payloads and 23 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 34.5°, DELTA 2 DEB passes over latitudes between 34.5°N and 34.5°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. United States operates approximately 12,413 active satellites in total.