WESTFORD NEEDLES

WESTFORD NEEDLES is a tracked piece of space debris attributed to United States, launched on 1963-05-09 from Vandenberg SFB, California on the Midas ETS-III F2 launch. After more than 63 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 2,172 km and 4,933 km with an inclination of 86.7°. It travels at approximately 22,816 km/h (6.34 km/s), completing one full orbit every 2 hours 44 minutes — that’s roughly 8.77 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1391 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. As orbital debris, WESTFORD NEEDLES 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.

WESTFORD NEEDLES orbits at an average altitude of 3,553 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 WESTFORD NEEDLES’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads 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 86.7°, WESTFORD NEEDLES passes over latitudes between 86.7°N and 86.7°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. United States operates approximately 12,358 active satellites in total.