A failed Soviet Venus lander will fall back to Earth after being stranded for 53 years
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/a-failed-soviet-venus-lander-will-fall-back-to-earth-after-being-stranded-for-53-years
A failed Soviet Venus lander will fall back to Earth after being stranded for 53 years
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/a-failed-soviet-venus-lander-will-fall-back-to-earth-after-being-stranded-for-53-years
12 Comments
>The former Soviet Union’s Cosmos 482 was a sister probe to Venera 8.
tl;dr one rocket failed and stranded the probe in Earth orbit and it is expected to fall back soon. It is speculated the probe may survive reentry since it was designed to survive Venus’ entry and Venus has much denser atmosphere and higher temp.
So watch your head and forget carrying an umbrella.
Isn’t this how Night of the Living dead started?
Wasnt this the plot for that 6 Million Dollar Man episode when he battles the Venus probe that came back to Earth but it still thinks it’s on Venus.
It was built to withstand the Venus entry and the harsh atmosphere there… undoubtedly it will be one big chunk coming down. It won’t burn up.
Let’s hope it didn’t have an RPG as power source or well be shovelling plutonium where it comes down.
If only there was some sort of vehicle that could recover it so it could be put on display somewhere. Some kind of “space shuttle”, if you know what I mean.
This is super good damn cool, they should spin it up and see if they can land it correctly since the ones that landed on Venus all mildly failed in some way or another.
Too bad it couldn’t be recovered and studied and then put into a museum!
Probably a long shot but let’s wish it falls right on top of the Kremlin.
Any details on the trajectory? If they know the date, they likely know the impact location as well.
Not sure why they would ommit that in the article, unless it’s falling at high seas, which would make the article a nothingburger, and thus worth omitting.
Are there any other pieces of soviet kit in orbit still?
So it’ll likely land anywhere south of Edmonton, Alberta and Edinburgh, Scotland – except maybe southern Patagonia and the very southernmost tip of South Island, NZ.
But chances are about 75-80% probably a splashdown in the ocean.
If it crashes near me I’ll sell whatever’s left of it on eBay