SCOUT X-1 R/B

SCOUT X-1 R/B is a spent rocket body associated with United States, launched on 1961-02-16 from Wallops Flight Facility / MARS, United States. After more than 65 years in orbit, it is one of the longest-surviving objects in the space catalogue. It orbits in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at altitudes between 632 km and 2,484 km with an inclination of 38.9°. It travels at approximately 25,525 km/h (7.09 km/s), completing one full orbit every 117 minutes — that’s roughly 12.28 orbits per day. Its orbital eccentricity of 0.1168 gives it a noticeably elliptical path, with significant altitude variation between perigee and apogee. At its current altitude, the estimated orbital lifetime before atmospheric re-entry is thousands of years. Spent rocket bodies like SCOUT X-1 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.

SCOUT X-1 R/B orbits at an average altitude of 1,558 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 SCOUT X-1 R/B’s average altitude, there are currently 47 active payloads and 344 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 38.9°, SCOUT X-1 R/B passes over latitudes between 38.9°N and 38.9°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. United States operates approximately 13,206 active satellites in total, of which 3 share a similar altitude band with SCOUT X-1 R/B.