FREGAT R/B

FREGAT R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 2003-12-27 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on the Amos-2 launch. With over 23 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 4,354 km and 35,852 km with an inclination of 23.2°. It travels at approximately 13,969 km/h (3.88 km/s), completing one full orbit every 11 hours 55 minutes — that’s roughly 2.01 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.5949 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like FREGAT 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.

FREGAT R/B orbits at an average altitude of 20,103 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 FREGAT R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 6 active payloads and 18 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 23.2°, FREGAT R/B passes over latitudes between 23.2°N and 23.2°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. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,286 active satellites in total, of which 5 share a similar altitude band with FREGAT R/B.