SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR)

SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR) is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 1997-11-12 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on the K95K launch. With over 29 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 196 km and 3,686 km with an inclination of 46.5°. It travels at approximately 24,930 km/h (6.92 km/s), completing one full orbit every 2 hours 6 minutes — that’s roughly 11.45 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.2099 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 SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR) are among the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris and are priority targets for collision avoidance manoeuvres and future active debris removal efforts.

SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR) orbits at an average altitude of 1,941 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 SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR)’s average altitude, there are currently 4 active payloads and 24 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 46.5°, SL-12 R/B(AUX MOTOR) passes over latitudes between 46.5°N and 46.5°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. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,514 active satellites in total.