GOES 7 AKM

GOES 7 AKM is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1987-02-26 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. With over 39 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 31,705 km and 40,722 km with an inclination of 10.2°. It travels at approximately 11,014 km/h (3.06 km/s), completing one full orbit every 24.3 hours — that’s roughly 0.99 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1059 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. It is part of the Goes constellation group. At geostationary altitude, there is no meaningful atmospheric drag — this object will remain in orbit indefinitely unless actively deorbited. Spent rocket bodies like GOES 7 AKM are among the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris and are priority targets for collision avoidance manoeuvres and future active debris removal efforts.

GOES 7 AKM orbits at an average altitude of 36,214 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 GOES 7 AKM’s average altitude, there are currently 89 active payloads and 17 tracked debris or rocket body fragments. With an inclination of 10.2°, GOES 7 AKM passes over latitudes between 10.2°N and 10.2°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. United States operates approximately 12,339 active satellites in total, of which 30 share a similar altitude band with GOES 7 AKM.