DELTA 1 R/B

DELTA 1 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1969-11-22 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, United States on the Skynet IA launch. After more than 57 years in orbit, it is one of the longest-surviving objects in the space catalogue. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 398 km and 17,171 km with an inclination of 27.9°. It travels at approximately 18,462 km/h (5.13 km/s), completing one full orbit every 5 hours 10 minutes — that’s roughly 4.65 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.5534 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like DELTA 1 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.

DELTA 1 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 8,785 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 DELTA 1 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 2 active payloads and 8 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 27.9°, DELTA 1 R/B passes over latitudes between 27.9°N and 27.9°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. United States operates approximately 13,206 active satellites in total.