ATLAS F DEB

ATLAS F DEB is a tracked piece of space debris attributed to United States, launched on 1978-05-13 from Vandenberg SFB, California on the Navstar GPS SVN 2 launch. With over 48 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 478 km and 2,068 km with an inclination of 63.6°. It travels at approximately 25,996 km/h (7.22 km/s), completing one full orbit every 111 minutes — that’s roughly 12.97 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1040 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. As orbital debris, ATLAS F 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.

ATLAS F DEB orbits at an average altitude of 1,273 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 ATLAS F DEB’s average altitude, there are currently 10 active payloads and 276 tracked debris or rocket body fragments — notable neighbours include ONEWEB-0013, ONEWEB-0036. This is a relatively sparse altitude band, containing less than 1% of all active satellites. With an inclination of 63.6°, ATLAS F DEB passes over latitudes between 63.6°N and 63.6°S, covering most populated land masses in both hemispheres. This mid-inclination band balances global coverage with efficient launch energy requirements. United States operates approximately 12,358 active satellites in total, of which 2 share a similar altitude band with ATLAS F DEB.