ARIANE 6 R/B

ARIANE 6 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with ESA (European Space Agency), launched on 2026-08-27 from Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana on the MTG-I2 launch. As a relatively recent addition to the catalogue, its orbital elements are well-characterised. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 169 km and 34,959 km with an inclination of 6.5°. It travels at approximately 14,691 km/h (4.08 km/s), completing one full orbit every 10 hours 14 minutes — that’s roughly 2.34 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7268 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like ARIANE 6 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 6 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 17,564 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 ARIANE 6 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads and 15 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 6.5°, ARIANE 6 R/B passes over latitudes between 6.5°N and 6.5°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. ESA (European Space Agency) operates approximately 78 active satellites in total.