A piece of Soviet spatial history, the Kosmos 482 probe, is about to conclude its very long 53 -year -old odyssey. And in the most disturbing way possible: falling on us.
Context. Threw on March 31, 1972, this Soviet ship was destined Venus, but a failure after its launch left it stranded in the Earth’s orbit. 53 years later, its final decrease is imminent: it is expected to be re -entered into the atmosphere around May 10.
The probe does not contain nuclear materials, and the risk of properties or people is low … but it is not null. And you don’t want an object of half a ton that falls from the sky to hit you.
Kosmos 482. Twin sister of the successful Venera 8 mission, she was launched only four days later, but unlike the first, she failed to land in Venus. The upper Blok-Nvl stage of the Molniya rocket that transported the Kosmos 482 went out prematurely, leaving the probe trapped in a very high elliptical terrestrial orbit (initially 206 x 9,800 km high).
True to the secretism of the time, the Soviet Union never admitted the ruling and simply baptized the mission with the generic designation “Kosmos 482”. After three days, several fragments that had separated from the ship rented over New Zealand, where some remains were even recovered, such as cylindrical fuel deposits. Other objects associated with the mission rented in 1981 and 1983.
Designed for Venusian hell. The object that has resisted all this time is the mission descent capsule, aimed at landing in Venus. It is estimated that this sphere has an approximate diameter of one meter and a mass of about 500 kilograms.
Here comes the interesting thing: this capsule was designed to survive the infernal atmosphere of Venus, a planet whose average temperature on the surface is 464 ° C. As the Satellite analyst Marco Langbroek points out, it is possible that relatively whole to the reentry of the Earth’s atmosphere, although the reentry trajectory and the seniority of the capsule reduce the possibility that it is intact at the time of the impact at the time of the impact
With the parachute deployed? The imminent reentry has intensified the follow -up by satellite observers. The amateur astronomer Ralf Vandebergh has achieved telescopic images of the object in which it seems to have a parachute.
“There is a compact ball, but several frames show a weak elongated structure on a particular side of the ball,” he told space.com. In addition, the object could be tumbos, so it is only visible at times.
How to follow the reentry. Kosmos 482 Orbit the Earth every 90 minutes in a inclination of 52 degrees. This means that the reentry can occur anywhere between latitudes 52 ° North and 52 ° South. The space -track estimated reentry window and analysts such as Langbroek focuses on May 10, 2025, with an uncertainty of 2 or 3 days that will be reduced as the moment approaches.
The ship will make a series of visible passes from the northern hemisphere at dawn just around the planned reentry dates. Sites like Heavens-Above already include predictions of visible passes for Kosmos 482.
When the man walked on the moon. The fall of Kosmos 482 is a tangible reminder of the golden era of space exploration and the intense race towards Venus, which followed the lunar race.
This 1972 relic (the last year in which man walked on the moon), will return to a radically different world, increasingly congested by thousands of active satellites and a growing amount of space garbage.
Image | POT
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