BREEZE-M DEB

BREEZE-M DEB is a tracked piece of space debris attributed to Russia (CIS), launched on 2012-08-06 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on the Telkom-3 launch. After 14 years in orbit, it continues to be tracked by global surveillance networks. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 260 km and 3,302 km with an inclination of 50.0°. It travels at approximately 25,173 km/h (6.99 km/s), completing one full orbit every 2 hours 2 minutes — that’s roughly 11.78 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1866 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, BREEZE-M 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.

BREEZE-M DEB orbits at an average altitude of 1,781 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 BREEZE-M DEB’s average altitude, there are currently 7 active payloads and 30 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 50.0°, BREEZE-M DEB passes over latitudes between 50.0°N and 50.0°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 1,285 active satellites in total.