SATCOM K1 R/B(PAM-D2)

SATCOM K1 R/B(PAM-D2) is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1986-01-12 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, United States on the OV-102 PAM deploy launch. With over 40 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 364 km and 32,738 km with an inclination of 27.0°. It travels at approximately 15,012 km/h (4.17 km/s), completing one full orbit every 9 hours 36 minutes — that’s roughly 2.50 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7062 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like SATCOM K1 R/B(PAM-D2) are among the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris and are priority targets for collision avoidance manoeuvres and future active debris removal efforts.

SATCOM K1 R/B(PAM-D2) orbits at an average altitude of 16,551 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 SATCOM K1 R/B(PAM-D2)’s average altitude, there are currently 1 active payload and 12 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 27.0°, SATCOM K1 R/B(PAM-D2) passes over latitudes between 27.0°N and 27.0°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 13,201 active satellites in total.