ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B

ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 2026-01-22 from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, New Zealand on the Open Cosmos launch. As a relatively recent addition to the catalogue, its orbital elements are well-characterised. It orbits in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at altitudes between 282 km and 845 km with an inclination of 89.0°. It travels at approximately 27,294 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 ELECTRON KICK STAGE 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.

ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B orbits at an average altitude of 564 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 ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 1,226 active payloads and 506 tracked debris or rocket body fragments — notable neighbours include ONEWEB-0050, STARLINK-2112, STARLINK-2722. This makes it one of the more crowded altitude bands, containing roughly 6.5% of all active satellites. With an inclination of 89.0°, ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B passes over latitudes between 89.0°N and 89.0°S, providing near-global coverage including the polar regions. Polar and near-polar orbits are used for reconnaissance, weather monitoring and Earth-observation missions that need to image every part of the planet. United States operates approximately 13,271 active satellites in total, of which 666 share a similar altitude band with ELECTRON KICK STAGE R/B.