The Cosmos 482 landing probe, launched by the former Soviet Union in 1972 to Venus, never came out of the terrestrial orbit and, after half a century, it is expected that this week will return in an unusual re -entry to which it is possible to survive.
The orbit of the artifact is declining and it is expected that “the earth’s atmosphere will again enter between May 7 and 13,” said NASA on its website on its website today (05.2025).
Since it was designed to resist passing through the atmosphere of Venus, denser than that of terrestrial, “it is possible that the probe (or parts of it) survives the reentry on earth and reaches the surface.”
However, there are many uncertain factors, among them that it will be a long and shallow reentry trajectory, and it could not be ruled out that it breaks or disintegrates widely when crossing the atmosphere of the Earth, the astronomer of the University of Delft (Germany) Marco Langbroek said on its website.
The probe has a protective cover of semiglobular titanium, “a kind of metallic cube, designed to survive the passage through the atmosphere of Venus” and was equipped with parachutes to slow down its speed, although Langbroek doubts that the display system of it continues to work more than half a century later.
As it is an uncontrolled reentry, at the moment you could not say “with any degree of certainty when and where” it will occur. Uncertainty will decrease when the planned arrow approaches, “but even the same day there will continue to be great uncertainties,” he added.
Langbroek wrote today on his social networks that the most likely date is May 10, with a margin of error of 1.5 days before or after, but given uncertainties, the forecast “is better expressed as a re -entry window of several days, between May 9 and 13, instead of pointing out a specific day.”
The risks “are not especially high, but neither null”, with a mass of just under 500 kilos and a size of 1 meter, are “similar to those of the impact of a meteorite,” the astronomer said on its website, which for years has followed the case of this Soviet probe.
Falling destination to Venus
The Cosmos 482 object was an attempt within the Venere project, with which the extinct Soviet Union launched several probes to study that planet, NASA said.
The launch occurred on March 31, 1972, only a few days after that of the Venere 8 probe, but failed in its attempt to escape from the low terrestrial orbit, according to Langbroek.
After an apparent attempt to launch in a transfer trajectory to Venus, the ship separated into four pieces: two remained in low terrestrial orbit and declined in 48 hours, and the others (presumably the landing probe and the motor unit of the upper stage detached) entered a higher orbit, according to NASA data.
The name of Cosmos is that the Soviets gave, since 1962, to their spacecraft that remained in terrestrial orbit, regardless of whether that was their planned final destination.
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