ARIANE 42P DEB

ARIANE 42P DEB is a tracked piece of space debris attributed to France, launched on 1992-08-10 from Guiana Space Centre, Kourou on the Topex-Poseidon launch. With over 34 years in orbit, it has far exceeded many satellites’ design lifetimes. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 1,088 km and 1,453 km with an inclination of 65.8°. It travels at approximately 26,001 km/h (7.22 km/s), completing one full orbit every 111 minutes — that’s roughly 12.98 orbits per day. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. As orbital debris, ARIANE 42P DEB poses a potential collision risk to operational satellites in nearby orbits and is continuously monitored by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network and other tracking systems.

ARIANE 42P DEB orbits at an average altitude of 1,271 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 ARIANE 42P DEB’s average altitude, there are currently 66 active payloads and 313 tracked debris or rocket body fragments — notable neighbours include ONEWEB-0013, ONEWEB-0017, ONEWEB-0020. This is a relatively sparse altitude band, containing less than 1% of all active satellites. With an inclination of 65.8°, ARIANE 42P DEB passes over latitudes between 65.8°N and 65.8°S, covering most populated land masses in both hemispheres. This mid-inclination band balances global coverage with efficient launch energy requirements. France operates approximately 114 active satellites in total, of which 2 share a similar altitude band with ARIANE 42P DEB.