ARIANE 5 R/B

ARIANE 5 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with France, launched on 2022-09-07 from Guiana Space Centre, Kourou on the Eutelsat Konnect VHTS launch. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 157 km and 47,778 km with an inclination of 3.9°. It travels at approximately 13,049 km/h (3.62 km/s), completing one full orbit every 14 hours 37 minutes — that’s roughly 1.64 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7848 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like ARIANE 5 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.

ARIANE 5 R/B follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 157 km (perigee) and 47,778 km (apogee). It spends most of its 14 hours 37 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 3.9°, ARIANE 5 R/B passes over latitudes between 3.9°N and 3.9°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. France operates approximately 115 active satellites in total.