ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B

ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2009-04-04 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the Wideband Global Satcom 2 launch. After 17 years in orbit, it continues to be tracked by global surveillance networks. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 527 km and 62,276 km with an inclination of 20.2°. It travels at approximately 11,695 km/h (3.25 km/s), completing one full orbit every 20 hours 18 minutes — that’s roughly 1.18 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.8174 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 follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 527 km (perigee) and 62,276 km (apogee). It spends most of its 20 hours 18 minutes orbital period near apogee, effectively loitering over a region of interest before rapidly sweeping through perigee — a profile used for high-latitude communications (Molniya orbits), early-warning systems and magnetospheric science. With an inclination of 20.2°, ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B passes over latitudes between 20.2°N and 20.2°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. United States operates approximately 12,413 active satellites in total.