BREEZE-M R/B

BREEZE-M R/B is a spent rocket body associated with Russia (CIS), launched on 2025-06-19 from PKMTR. As a relatively recent addition to the catalogue, its orbital elements are well-characterised. It orbits in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) at altitudes between 18,837 km and 50,481 km with an inclination of 0.2°. It travels at approximately 11,221 km/h (3.12 km/s), completing one full orbit every 22 hours 59 minutes — that’s roughly 1.04 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.3856 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. Spent rocket bodies like BREEZE-M 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.

BREEZE-M R/B follows a Highly Elliptical Orbit, sweeping between 18,837 km (perigee) and 50,481 km (apogee). It spends most of its 22 hours 59 minutes orbital period near apogee, effectively loitering over a region of interest before rapidly sweeping through perigee — a profile used for high-latitude communications (Molniya orbits), early-warning systems and magnetospheric science. Within ±50 km of BREEZE-M R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 0 active payloads and 5 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 0.2°, BREEZE-M R/B passes over latitudes between 0.2°N and 0.2°S, concentrating coverage over equatorial and near-equatorial regions. Low-inclination orbits maximise revisit rates over specific tropical zones. Russia (CIS) operates approximately 1,284 active satellites in total.