ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B

ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2023-12-15 from RLLC on the QPS-SAR-5 launch. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 510 km and 538 km with an inclination of 42.0°. It travels at approximately 27,372 km/h (7.60 km/s), completing one full orbit every 95 minutes — that’s roughly 15.14 orbits per day. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is ~3–10 years. Spent rocket bodies like ELECTRON KICK STAGE 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.

ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B orbits at an average altitude of 524 km in the core of Low Earth Orbit, the most heavily utilised altitude band. The balance of moderate drag (limiting debris accumulation) and short signal path (enabling low-latency links and high-resolution imaging) makes this regime the default for most commercial and government missions. Within ±50 km of ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 7,618 active payloads and 285 tracked debris or rocket body fragments — notable neighbours include STARLINK-1184, STARLINK-1231, STARLINK-1276. This makes it one of the more crowded altitude bands, containing roughly 43.6% of all active satellites. With an inclination of 42.0°, ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B passes over latitudes between 42.0°N and 42.0°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, of which 6,949 share a similar altitude band with ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B.