ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B

ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2019-08-08 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the AEHF 5 launch. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 13,770 km and 35,395 km with an inclination of 7.2°. It travels at approximately 12,919 km/h (3.59 km/s), completing one full orbit every 15 hours 4 minutes — that’s roughly 1.59 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.3493 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 24,583 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. With an inclination of 7.2°, ATLAS 5 CENTAUR R/B passes over latitudes between 7.2°N and 7.2°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.