posted 04-28-2025 04:32 PM               

The upper stage of the Soyuz booster launching that Venus probe cut off prematurely, leaving the payload marooned in Earth orbit. But there is new news for this old probe: "In about two weeks from now, on or near May 9-10, an unusual uncontrolled reentry will happen." That's the report from satellite watcher Marco Langbroek of the Netherlands. He has been taking telescopic looks at the errant, Earth-circling Cosmos 482 remains for numbers of years.

And one hot topic to ponder is whether that landing module intended for Venus, custom-made to withstand reentry through the thick Venus atmosphere, might survive reentry through Earth's atmosphere intact.

As Langbroek reports, the Venus probe had a parachute for the upper Venusian atmosphere dive, "but I wouldn't bet on that working now, and would assume that, if it survives re-entry, it would come down hard."

Above: Venera 8 descent module model. Cosmos 382 was the sister craft to Venera 8.

posted 05-07-2025 12:02 PM               

A Soviet spacecraft is crashing to Earth this week. These researchers are tracking its path

Scientists believe the spacecraft will likely land in the ocean, but predicting the exact spot is difficult.

Later this week, a piece of Cold War space history is expected to return to Earth—although where it will land remains unclear.

Scientists estimate that Kosmos 482, a Soviet spacecraft that launched from Earth in 1972 with plans to land on Venus, will reenter Earth's atmosphere sometime this weekend. The spacecraft, which was fortified to withstand the extreme conditions at the surface of Venus, will likely reach Earth's surface intact.

Don't panic: The odds that this relic will land in a populated area are very low, said Marcin Pilinski, a research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder.

"It's an infinitesimally small number," Pilinski said. "It will very likely land in the ocean."

He's keeping a close eye. Pilinski is part of a team of scientists that has tracked Kosmos 482 as it orbited Earth. They include Shaylah Mutschler, director of the space weather division for the company Space Environment Technologies, and Charles Constant, a doctoral student at University College London.

It's a story five decades in the making: Kosmos 482 set out for Venus in March 1972, but, due to an unknown error with its rockets, never made it far. Today, it orbits the planet in what scientists call an "eccentric" orbit, similar in shape to a stretched-out rubber band. Because of Cold War secrecy, the researchers aren't sure how big the spacecraft is. But estimates suggest it's more than meter (almost 3.5 feet) wide and weighs about 495 kilograms (1,090 pounds).

"It was supposed to escape the sphere of influence of Earth," said Mutschler, who earned her doctorate in aerospace engineering sciences from CU Boulder in 2022. "It didn't quite do enough to get out."

Predicting where the spacecraft will crash is difficult. In part, that's because the space weather above Earth can change a lot. During events called solar storms, for example, the sun releases intense bursts of energy that can cause our planet's atmosphere to inflate like a balloon.

"People who monitor asteroids to see if they will potentially impact Earth actually have an easier job," Pilinski said. "Those objects would enter at a really steep angle. They're not skimming part of the atmosphere for days or weeks like this spacecraft."

posted 05-09-2025 12:07 PM            

The uncertainty in this prediction is now +/- 13.67 hours.

posted 05-10-2025 06:40 AM               

Kosmos-482 spacecraft left orbit and fell into the ocean

The Kosmos-482 spacecraft, launched in 1972, ceased to exist, leaving orbit and falling into the Indian Ocean.

The descent of the spacecraft was monitored by the Automated Warning System for Hazardous Situations in Near-Earth Space.

According to calculations by specialists from TsNIIMash (part of Roscosmos), the spacecraft entered the dense layers of the atmosphere at 9:24 Moscow time [0624 GMT or 2:24 a.m. EDT], 560 km west of Middle Andaman Island, and fell into the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta.

The spacecraft was launched in the spring of 1972 to study Venus, but due to a malfunction of the booster block, it remained in a high elliptical orbit of the Earth, gradually approaching the planet.

posted 05-10-2025 06:45 AM               

Status 10 May 09:56 CEST

As the descent craft was not spotted by radar over Germany at the expected 07:32 UTC / 09:32 CEST [3:32 a.m. EDT] pass, it is most likely that the reentry has already occurred.

Status 10 May 08:35 CEST

The descent craft was seen by radar systems over Germany at approximately 04:30 UTC and 06:04 UTC [12:04 a.m. and 2:04 a.m. EDT], corresponding to 06:30 CEST and 08:04 CEST, respectively.

posted 05-10-2025 06:48 AM               

According to US Space Force (space-track) their latest estimate for the K482SA reentry is between 0520 and 0544 UTC [1:20 a.m. and 1:44 a.m. EDT], over the Pacific.

This US estimate is of course not consistent with the ESA and Roskosmos reports.

posted 05-10-2025 07:20 AM               

The interesting point, which we'll probably never know, is whether the Venus lander portion remained intact and if so where that landed.

posted 05-10-2025 09:00 AM               

The early (Korolev) Soviet probes were quite complicated affairs. The orbital parts, excepting the upper stage of the launch rocket, consisted of a single mass (unlike for example the Apollo spacecraft where the CSM needed to manoeuvre and dock with the LM to become a single mass).

That mass had separate parts. There was an orbital launch platform and a space probe section. The launch platform was Kosmos 482. Only when successfully on the way to Venus would the space probe portion become Venera "8" - it never managed that.

Because of Soviet secrecy it is unknown as to the exact components of the Venera part of Kosmos 482, but it can be stated quite categorically that it didn't consist solely of the "lander". The lander could not have made it from Earth to Venus on its own. When the spaceprobe portion of Kosmos 482 failed to leave Earth orbit the space probe was still intact. It would have had a detachable parachute module, a communications module, a thruster and a a mid course engine at the very least. If it was similar to Venera 7 it would also have had an Orbiter and a relay module.

posted 05-10-2025 09:10 AM               

At the end of June 1972, an additional object apparently separated from the spacecraft: it was officially identified by NORAD as a fragment, but, early on, independent observers suggested that it was the lander jettisoned from the main craft, even though, it could not be confirmed. It was believed that the main spacecraft had reentered on May 5, 1981, while its fragment remained in orbit until 2025. ...

For nearly half a century, most assessments of the Kosmos-482 fate were based on Western tracking data, but it was impossible to tell for sure under what circumstances the observable objects had been generated and, in particular, why the lander, intended to separate from the orbital module on approach to Venus seemingly detached from its "mother ship" in orbit around the Earth. The all-but-certain answer came with a contemporaneous document declassified in 2016 but not available to general public until 2022.

As it transpired, on April 28, 1972, or nearly a month after the Venera-72 No. 671 probe got stranded in Earth's orbit, the State Commission overseeing the project held a meeting where it reviewed and discussed the status of the two Venera-72 probes — Vehicle No. 670, which was heading to Venus as planned, as well as the situation with Vehicle No. 671, left functioning but stranded in a useless orbit around the Earth under the cover name Kosmos-482.

In its official decision, signed by the commission chairman General Mrykin, mission management directed the flight control team of the Chief Operational Control Group, GOGU, and the engineering team at Lavochkin design bureau, among other things, to perform the separation of the Descent Module from the Orbital Module of Vehicle No. 671. The operation could be planned as a test or, possibly, in an effort to reduce the mass of the spacecraft ahead of its inevitable reentry, because, the document instructed the control team to discontinue all operations with Vehicle No. 671 after the separation. The decision noted that the date for the split between the orbital and descent modules was to be coordinated between GOGU, Lavochkin and the State Commission later, thus implying that, as of April 28, 1972, the "mother ship" and the lander were still flying as one spacecraft.

Therefore, the document essentially confirmed that the fifth fragment, cataloged by the US military in June 1972 as No. 6073 (International designation 1972-023E) was the 480-kilogram egg-shaped Venus lander separated from the main spacecraft of the stranded Venera-72 probe.

posted 05-10-2025 09:57 AM               

Soviet Venus probe Kosmos 482 plunges back to Earth 53 years after failed launch

A capsule that was sent into space to land on a planet has finally done so — only on the wrong world and 53 years late.

The Kosmos 482 uncrewed spacecraft, which the former Soviet Union intended to touch down on Venus, instead returned to Earth on Saturday (May 10).

posted 05-10-2025 10:00 AM               

The Royal Aircraft Establishment satellite tables has the fragment 1972-23E as having separated from the 1972-23C and had an apogee of a mere 237km. That could not possibly be a fragment of the Venera space probe and therefore isn't the descent module. No other fragments are recorded in the RAE tables.

Cosmos 482 had five trackable parts in the RAE tables:

• A was the failed Venera launch bus. It had an orbit of 209x8589km. The launch bus descended in 1981

• B was the launcher rocket upper stage, 196x215km which descended 1972

• C was the Kosmos 482 launcher, 179x237km, descended 1972

• D was a cylinder, 207x9767km, still in orbit in 1985 with an estimated lifespan of +10 years. It is what came down today.

• Fragment E had no further information in the RAE tables and is basically a phantom

posted 05-10-2025 10:57 AM               

I would pose this one question to you (and him): if indeed the Soviet hierarchy ordered a test to seperate the failed Venus lander, and that test was successful, why did the lander continue to orbit the Earth and didn't actually land (on Earth)? Why was it still orbiting until yesterday?

As I say, I have no reason to doubt your friend, but the contemporaneus RAE tables tell a different tale than the release of secretive Soviet documents decades after the facts.

And, let us be quite clear- your friend doesn't actually say the documents state the separation occurred, in fact the opposite:

"The decision noted that the date for the split between the orbital and descent modules was to be coordinated between GOGU, Lavochkin and the State Commission later, thus implying that, as of April 28, 1972, the "mother ship" and the lander were still flying as one spacecraft."