FALCON 9 R/B

FALCON 9 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2018-07-22 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, United States on the Telstar 19V launch. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 190 km and 8,961 km with an inclination of 27.0°. It travels at approximately 21,724 km/h (6.03 km/s), completing one full orbit every 3 hours 10 minutes — that’s roughly 7.57 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.4006 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 4,576 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. With an inclination of 27.0°, FALCON 9 R/B passes over latitudes between 27.0°N and 27.0°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. United States operates approximately 13,201 active satellites in total.