SL-14 R/B

SL-14 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 1978-10-26 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia on the Meteor-2 GVM launch. With over 48 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 1,686 km and 1,703 km with an inclination of 82.5°. It travels at approximately 25,308 km/h (7.03 km/s), completing one full orbit every 2 hours — that’s roughly 11.97 orbits per day. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. Spent rocket bodies like SL-14 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.

SL-14 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 1,695 km in the uppermost reaches of Low Earth Orbit. At this altitude, orbital decay is effectively zero without active deorbiting, and coverage footprints are significantly larger than lower LEO, though at the cost of higher latency. Within ±50 km of SL-14 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 21 active payloads and 77 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 82.5°, SL-14 R/B passes over latitudes between 82.5°N and 82.5°S, providing near-global coverage including the polar regions. Polar and near-polar orbits are used for reconnaissance, weather monitoring and Earth-observation missions that need to image every part of the planet. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,514 active satellites in total, of which 7 share a similar altitude band with SL-14 R/B.