ARIANE 1 DEB

ARIANE 1 DEB is a tracked piece of space debris attributed to France, launched on 1979-12-24 from Guiana Space Centre, Kourou on the CAT launch. With over 47 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 957 km and 40,762 km with an inclination of 16.7°. It travels at approximately 13,773 km/h (3.83 km/s), completing one full orbit every 12 hours 26 minutes — that’s roughly 1.93 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7309 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. As orbital debris, ARIANE 1 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.

ARIANE 1 DEB follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 957 km (perigee) and 40,762 km (apogee). It spends most of its 12 hours 26 minutes orbital period near apogee, effectively loitering over a region of interest before rapidly sweeping through perigee — a profile used for high-latitude communications (Molniya orbits), early-warning systems and magnetospheric science. Within ±50 km of ARIANE 1 DEB’s average altitude, there are currently 4 active payloads and 15 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 16.7°, ARIANE 1 DEB passes over latitudes between 16.7°N and 16.7°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. France operates approximately 115 active satellites in total.