During the Cold War, the former Soviet Union sent multiple probes to explore planet Venus to ace the space race against the US. Some of these missions proved to be unsuccessful due to the technological challenges. One such probe, named ‘Kosmos 482’, is now about to crash land on Earth.
Kosmos 482, also spelled as Cosmos 482, was a Soviet spacecraft launched on March 31, 1972, for a Venus probe as part of the Venera program. However, it failed to escape the Earth’s orbit due to a technical malfunction and has since remained stranded there.
After over 53 years, the spacecraft debris will likely crash-land on Earth. While an exact date cannot be anticipated due to the unpredictable nature of space weather and the uncertainty about the object’s exact size, most estimates suggest the spacecraft will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere between May 9 to May 11.
Ralf Vandebergh, a Dutch satellite tracker who took the high-resolution photos of the craft, observed a spherical object (likely the descent module) with a faint trailing structure, possibly a degraded parachute or antenna. His 2014 images suggested a similar structure, and recent frames reinforce this. He said Cosmos 482 is around 130 kilometers closer than the Starlink bus.
“Several frames seem to confirm what I thought to see in the 2014 images, [that] there is a compact ball, but several frames show a weak elongated structure at one particular side of the ball,” he told Space News.
There are conflicting claims about which part of this spacecraft is re-entering the Earth. However, researchers believe it would be the descent module that was made to withstand the intense heat and pressure of landing on Venus, a planet with an atmosphere 90 times denser than Earth’s.
The development is being watched with intrigue because the spacecraft’s debris, weighing about 500 kilograms, is expected to plunge uncontrollably back to Earth. At this point, space debris-tracking experts say it’s too early to predict where the half-ton chunk of metal might fall or how much of it will survive re-entry.
While meteors and space debris frequently swerve toward a crash landing on Earth, most disintegrate as they enter the planet’s dense atmosphere at thousands of miles per hour through friction and pressure.
However, the Soviet reentry vehicle is likely equipped with a heat shield, which could help it survive the Earth’s atmosphere and make it crash on the ground instead.
Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek predicts that if it remains intact, the failed spacecraft will crash at 242 kilometres/ hour.
“While not without risk, we should not be too worried,” Langbroek told The Guardian in an email. Even if it doesn’t disintegrate, the object’s risk is comparable to that of a random meteorite fall, which occurs frequently every year. “You run a bigger risk of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime,” he said.
He added that while the probability of the spacecraft hitting someone or something is small, it cannot be completely ruled out. According to Langbroek, the debris could fall anywhere in Africa, South America, Australia, the USA, parts of Canada, parts of Europe, and parts of Asia. It is impossible to confirm its exact location.
Notably, this is not the first time that a Soviet spacecraft has come crashing down to earth. In December 1965, debris from Soviet Kosmos 96 (also intended for Venus) re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and crashed in Pennsylvania, United States.
Later, in 1972, some debris from Kosmos 482 fell in New Zealand when the mission failed. In 1978, a Soviet reconnaissance satellite, Kosmos 954, crashed in Canada’s Northern Territories.
Despite having a parachute, the Venus probe hasn’t been used in the hostile confines of space for a few decades. Therefore, the likelihood of a parachute deploying at the appropriate moment or slowing the vehicle’s descent is quite low.
What Do We Know About Cosmos 484?
The former Soviet Union launched a series of probes between 1961 and 1984 to explore Venus. The program became known as the Venera Program, named after the Russian word for Venus. It consisted of 16 missions to study the planet’s environment and planetary conditions, atmosphere, and surface.
The program initially consisted of landers, flybys, and atmospheric probes, whereas orbiters and advanced instruments were added in later missions.
The Venera series of probes led to several breakthroughs. For instance, it confirmed CO2 dominance and trace sulfuric acid on Venus. Additionally, some Soviet missions sent to Venus measured temperatures, pressures, and light levels, revealing a hellish landscape of bedrock and fine regolith.
In fact, the program’s data laid the groundwork for modern Venus exploration. Several Soviet Venera probes and just four US Pioneer Venus probes were sent to Venus’ surface. The Soviet probes had seven successful landings. In contrast, the US Pioneer Venus 2 of 1978 mission deployed four probes, including one large probe and three smaller ones that reached the surface. However, they were not designed to survive landing like Venera landers. No landings have been made on Venus since 1985.
While several Soviet Venus missions were successful, some others failed due to technological challenges, Venus’s extreme environment, and the Soviet fixation with outpacing the United States during the peak of the space war between the two blocs.
The Kosmos 482 was a sister mission to Venera 8, the latter being only the second successful landing of a mission on Venus after Venera 7. Kosmos 482 was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, using a Molniya 8K78M rocket on March 31, 1972, just four days after Venera 8 was launched.
Kosmos 482 combined a carrier bus and a descent module (lander), and its design and mission plan were identical to those of Venera 8. The Cosmos 482 spacecraft had a total launch mass of 1,184 kilograms. Its top shell was designed to be discarded upon atmospheric descent to reveal the antenna and equipment and deploy the 2.5 square meter parachute. The probe was powered by batteries.
The Kosmos 482 spacecraft was intended to reach Venus, enter its atmosphere, and land on the planet to gather temperature, pressure, and atmospheric composition data.
The descent module was outfitted with a radio altimeter, an accelerometer, an anemometer, a gamma-ray spectrometer, a gas analyzer, visible photometers, radio transmitters, and sensors for temperature, pressure, and density. However, due to a technical malfunction with the rocket, this spacecraft never made it to Venus.
The spacecraft appeared to attempt to launch into a Venus transfer trajectory after parking in an Earth orbit. It broke up into four pieces: two of which disintegrated within 48 hours while remaining in an elliptical Earth orbit, and two of which—likely the detached upper stage engine unit and lander probe—went into a higher orbit of 210 x 9800 kilometres, as per NASA findings.
“It is thought that a malfunction resulted in an engine burn, which did not achieve sufficient velocity for the Venus transfer and left the payload in this elliptical Earth orbit. The lander probe’s orbit has been decaying over time.”
Following Soviet practice, the mission was renamed Kosmos 482 after failing to leave Earth’s orbit, a label given to spacecraft stuck in Earth orbit regardless of their intended destination. The Soviet silence on Kosmos 482’s failure, only assigning the Kosmos label post-failure, was indicative of the cold war era’s secretive space race dynamics. However, the declassified documents later confirmed that it was meant for Venus.
By May 2025, the orbit of Kosmos 482’s debris had likely decayed significantly, and the world is now awaiting its entry back to Earth.
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