ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B

ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2002-08-21 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the Eutelsat HB6 launch. With over 24 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 184 km and 14,851 km with an inclination of 17.9°. It travels at approximately 19,286 km/h (5.36 km/s), completing one full orbit every 4 hours 32 minutes — that’s roughly 5.30 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.5280 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like ATLAS 5 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 5 CENTAUR R/B orbits at an average altitude of 7,518 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 ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 3 active payloads and 11 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 17.9°, ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B passes over latitudes between 17.9°N and 17.9°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.