ARIANE 6 R/B

ARIANE 6 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with France, launched on 2024-07-09 from Guiana Space Centre, Kourou on the Cubesats launch. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 542 km and 588 km with an inclination of 62.0°. It travels at approximately 27,291 km/h (7.58 km/s), completing one full orbit every 96 minutes — that’s roughly 15.01 orbits per day. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is ~3–10 years. Spent rocket bodies like ARIANE 6 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.

ARIANE 6 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 565 km in the core of Low Earth Orbit, the most heavily utilised altitude band. The balance of moderate drag (limiting debris accumulation) and short signal path (enabling low-latency links and high-resolution imaging) makes this regime the default for most commercial and government missions. Within ±50 km of ARIANE 6 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 1,828 active payloads and 465 tracked debris or rocket body fragments — notable neighbours include ONEWEB-0050, STARLINK-1522, STARLINK-2112. This makes it one of the more crowded altitude bands, containing roughly 10.1% of all active satellites. With an inclination of 62.0°, ARIANE 6 R/B passes over latitudes between 62.0°N and 62.0°S, covering most populated land masses in both hemispheres. This mid-inclination band balances global coverage with efficient launch energy requirements. France operates approximately 115 active satellites in total, of which 22 share a similar altitude band with ARIANE 6 R/B.