CZ-3C R/B

CZ-3C R/B is a spent rocket body associated with China, launched on 2018-12-24 from Xichang, China on the TJS 3 launch. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 219 km and 25,466 km with an inclination of 28.0°. It travels at approximately 16,397 km/h (4.55 km/s), completing one full orbit every 7 hours 22 minutes — that’s roughly 3.26 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.6570 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like CZ-3C 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.

CZ-3C R/B orbits at an average altitude of 12,843 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 CZ-3C R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads and 4 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 28.0°, CZ-3C R/B passes over latitudes between 28.0°N and 28.0°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. China operates approximately 1,247 active satellites in total.