53-Year-Old Soviet Spacecraft to Perform 'Final Death Plunge'

After decades of inadvertently orbiting Earth, Kosmos 482 is ready to come home. Astronomers believe the Soviet-era spacecraft is ready to perform its "final death plunge," which will most likely occur this weekend. Kosmos 482 will either disintegrate upon atmospheric reentry or smack into Earth's surface—and one renowned astrophysicist is anticipating the latter.
The Soviet Union launched Kosmos 482 on March 31, 1972. At the time, the spacecraft was part of the Venera program, which aimed to place multiple probes in Venus's atmosphere and on its surface. While many Venera probes succeeded, the one launched that day did not: Its escape stage exploded as it attempted to achieve a Venus transfer trajectory, causing the spacecraft to break apart. Some of its fragments decayed within 48 hours, causing space debris to fall onto New Zealand. But the lander probe survived.
Back then, it was tradition to attach "Kosmos" to the name of any Soviet spacecraft that achieved Earth orbit, accidentally or not; as a result, the failed Venera probe became Kosmos 482. It's circled our planet ever since, starting as high as 6,000 miles and gradually sinking down to its current maximum of 245 miles above Earth's surface. Now, the 1,092-pound hunk of metal is preparing to re-enter the planet's atmosphere, according to computer models tracking Kosmos 482's slow descent.
"It's in its final death plunge," Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said on NPR's All Things Considered.
The meter-wide Kosmos 482 lander probe. Credit: NASA
McDowell tracks satellite and space debris, sharing the juiciest of his findings via social media. Many times, these objects aerosolize upon reentry; on occasion, they survive the trip. Since Kosmos 482 was originally designed to withstand Venus's atmosphere, McDowell thinks this particular spacecraft could be a survivor.
"What I expect is instead of burning up and melting, it will reenter essentially undamaged," McDowell told NPR. "And so somewhere on Earth, this half ton sphere will fall out of the sky at a couple hundred miles an hour. And most likely it'll be over the ocean, and no one will ever know….There's a not trivial chance that it could hit somewhere where it damages property. And there's a small chance—but it's like one in thousands—that it could hurt somebody."
Marco Langbroek, a spy satellite researcher at the Dutch satellite tracking station SatTrackCam Leiden, co-developed a reentry model that places Kosmos 482's potential landing anywhere between Canada, Russia, and the southern end of South America—a vast swath of Earth that doesn't afford many global citizens much comfort. But even this blurry geographical window might not be accurate.
"The reentry is an uncontrolled reentry," Langbroek notes. "At the moment, we cannot say with any degree of certainty when and where the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft exactly will reenter."

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