A Soviet-era spacecraft built to land on Venus is falling to Earth instead | Kosmos 482 is encased in a titanium heat shield, with a good chance of reaching the surface intact.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/05/a-soviet-era-spacecraft-built-to-land-on-venus-is-falling-to-earth-instead/
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If it was intended to survive entry to the Venusian atmosphere it sure as shit will survive re-entry to earth
So if it lands in my backyard can I sell that titanium for scrap?
**Status 09 May 12:12 CEST**
ESA’s Space Debris Office currently predicts that the reentry of the descent craft will take place at:
06:26 UTC (08:26 CEST) on 10 May 2025
The uncertainty in this prediction is now +/- 4.35 hours.
[https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/05/07/reentry-prediction-soviet-era-venera-venus-lander-cosmos-482-descent-craft/](https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/05/07/reentry-prediction-soviet-era-venera-venus-lander-cosmos-482-descent-craft/)
There is a 1 in 100 billion chance for the funniest thing possible to happen.
This reminds me of the Six Million Dollar Man vs the Death Probe.
https://youtu.be/puvc-FodxV4?si=UEl1cwr_mKYvzO4i
Steve Austin battled one of these back In the 70s!
Was never explained by the green cross code man, I don’t ever remember being told to look up
According to the current prediction maps (https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/05/07/reentry-prediction-soviet-era-venera-venus-lander-cosmos-482-descent-craft/), there is still a possibility that it will reenter at or near the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the place that it originally launched from.
Sweeeeet…..every day brings fresh things to concern oneself about.
Track the object and learn more about potential landing zones here
https://www.satcat.com/sats/6073
Have they tried using a sharpie to redirect it over the ocean?
>The lander carries a parachute that would have slowed its final descent to Venus, **but it’s not likely that the parachute deployment system still works after 53 years in space.**
As reality turns into a caricature of itself, I’m going to predict that the parachute will deploy, surprising everyone. (considering the tiny possibility that the heat of reentry warms up those batteries just enough to allow this to happen)
Data is data, take what you can get. happy landings!
*with a heatsheild that may or may not be intact, no parachute and dropping from a higher altitude, with no direction control before descent and taking more friction than ever intended. It will probably burn up, the only reason anyone is thinking it won’t. Its it could hav all the right things going for it, it was built at a time when Soviets truly built things to last, just maybe not to work well.