DIAMANT R/B

DIAMANT R/B is a spent rocket body associated with France, launched on 1966-02-17 from Hammaguir, Algeria on the Diapason D-1A launch. After more than 60 years in orbit, it is one of the longest-surviving objects in the space catalogue. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 495 km and 2,078 km with an inclination of 34.1°. It travels at approximately 25,973 km/h (7.21 km/s), completing one full orbit every 111 minutes — that’s roughly 12.94 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1034 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. Spent rocket bodies like DIAMANT 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.

DIAMANT R/B orbits at an average altitude of 1,287 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 DIAMANT R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 22 active payloads and 388 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 34.1°, DIAMANT R/B passes over latitudes between 34.1°N and 34.1°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. France operates approximately 124 active satellites in total, of which 2 share a similar altitude band with DIAMANT R/B.