FALCON 9 R/B

FALCON 9 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2018-05-11 from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the Bangabadhu 1 launch. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 265 km and 32,866 km with an inclination of 18.7°. It travels at approximately 15,007 km/h (4.17 km/s), completing one full orbit every 9 hours 36 minutes — that’s roughly 2.50 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.7107 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like FALCON 9 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.

FALCON 9 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 16,566 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 FALCON 9 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 1 active payload and 12 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 18.7°, FALCON 9 R/B passes over latitudes between 18.7°N and 18.7°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. United States operates approximately 12,858 active satellites in total.