BREEZE-KM R/B

BREEZE-KM R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 2013-01-15 from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia on the Strela-3M launch. After 13 years in orbit, it continues to be tracked by global surveillance networks. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 1,485 km and 1,506 km with an inclination of 82.5°. It travels at approximately 25,626 km/h (7.12 km/s), completing one full orbit every 116 minutes — that’s roughly 12.43 orbits per day. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. Spent rocket bodies like BREEZE-KM R/B are among the largest pieces of uncontrolled space debris and are priority targets for collision avoidance manoeuvres and future active debris removal efforts.

BREEZE-KM R/B orbits at an average altitude of 1,496 km in the uppermost reaches of Low Earth Orbit. At this altitude, orbital decay is effectively zero without active deorbiting, and coverage footprints are significantly larger than lower LEO, though at the cost of higher latency. Within ±50 km of BREEZE-KM R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 348 active payloads and 396 tracked debris or rocket body fragments. With an inclination of 82.5°, BREEZE-KM R/B passes over latitudes between 82.5°N and 82.5°S, providing near-global coverage including the polar regions. Polar and near-polar orbits are used for reconnaissance, weather monitoring and Earth-observation missions that need to image every part of the planet. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,514 active satellites in total, of which 327 share a similar altitude band with BREEZE-KM R/B.