VIKING DEB

VIKING DEB is a tracked piece of space debris attributed to France, launched on 1986-02-22 from Guiana Space Centre, Kourou on the SPOT 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 823 km and 13,412 km with an inclination of 98.9°. It travels at approximately 19,570 km/h (5.44 km/s), completing one full orbit every 4 hours 20 minutes — that’s roughly 5.54 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.4667 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. As orbital debris, VIKING DEB poses a potential collision risk to operational satellites in nearby orbits and is continuously monitored by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network and other tracking systems.

VIKING DEB orbits at an average altitude of 7,118 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 VIKING DEB’s average altitude, there are currently 1 active payload and 7 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 98.9°, VIKING DEB passes over latitudes between 98.9°N and 98.9°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. France operates approximately 115 active satellites in total.