Failed Soviet Venus probe to crash to Earth later this week
Launched over 50 years ago, this piece of the Kosmos 482 mission was designed to survive the punishing conditions on Venus.
A piece of Soviet hardware built to survive the burning, crushing environment of Venus will soon crash down to Earth and, so far, noone has any idea where it might land.
On March 27 and March 31, in 1972, the Soviet Union launched two new spacecraft bound for the planet Venus. The first, Venera 8, became the second spacecraft to successfully land on our sister planet and send back data on its extreme environment. The other probably would have been named Venera 9 had it actually made the journey to Venus. However, a problem occurred after it reached space which trapped it in an elliptical orbit around Earth. The spacecraft was subsequently named Kosmos 482, instead, and it was left to eventually burn up in Earth's atmosphere.
The first pieces of Kosmos 482 came crashing down only a few days after launch, as four titanium spheres, each bigger than a basketball, landed in a farmer's field near Ashburton, New Zealand. There are reports that a similar object was found in 1978, about 20 kilometres away. The rest which is likely identical to the Venera 8 spacecraft, has stayed in orbit since.
The Kosmos 482 descent module is likely an exact duplicate of this Venera 8 lander, which measures roughly a metre across and weighs about 500 kilograms. (NASA)
Now, over 53 years later, one of those remaining pieces is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere later this week.
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. Most spacecraft launched into orbit are not designed to survive reentry. As they plow into the upper atmosphere travelling at speeds of around 25,000 km/h, they burn up and — at least in most cases — nothing reaches the ground intact.
However, this piece of Kosmos 482 is not like most other spacecraft. It was built to survive the plunge into the dense, scorching atmosphere of Venus.
An artist's impression of Venusian mountains, depicted for NASA's DAVINCI mission (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry and Imaging). (NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab)
With temperatures close to 500 degrees Celsius and air pressure 90 times what we experience here on Earth, landing on Venus is like being in an oven set at twice its maximum temperature, nearly a kilometre down in the crushing depths of the ocean.
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When will this happen?
According to Marco Langbroek, an expert on Space Situational Awareness at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, the current estimate for the reentry (as of May 7) is at 7:51 UTC (3:51 a.m. EDT) on Saturday, May 10.
However, due to uncertainties brought on by factors such as space weather, it could happen anytime between 7:15 a.m. ET on Friday, May 9 and 12:27 a.m. ET on Sunday, May 11.
"As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible that it will survive reentry through the Earth atmosphere intact, and impact intact," Langbroek wrote in his satellite tracking blog SatTrackCam Leiden.
"It likely will be a hard impact," Langbroek added, explaining that it is doubtful that the lander's parachute would deploy, given that it likely has dead batteries after 53 years in space. "There are many uncertain factors in whether the lander will survive reentry though, including that this will be a long shallow reentry trajectory, and the age of the object."
When the Kosmos 482 lander comes down, it will surely produce a fiery display in the sky, day or night, for anyone who happens to be in the area.
Although the probe will hit the top of the atmosphere travelling at more than 25,000 km/h, based on Langbroek's calculations, he estimates that it will slow to around 242 km/h by the time it hits the ground.
Were it to have successfully landed on Venus in 1972, this object would have done so by first slowing down using the atmosphere, and then deploying a parachute for the final descent to the surface. It was not designed to survive a full-on impact at top speed, however its titanium shell makes it very tough.
Crash zone
As for where the Kosmos 482 lander will crash, noone knows.
Based on its orbit around Earth and the uncertainty in the timing of its reentry, Langbroek says it can land anywhere between 52 degrees North latitude and 52 degrees South latitude.
A map of Earth highlighting the area between 52°N to 52°S. (Base map: Mastersun25/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Highlighting: Scott Sutherland)
Basically, that's anywhere between Saskatoon and Red Deer in the north, and the southern tip of South America in the south.
There is more water than land between those latitudes. Thus, it is more likely that this probe will splash down into the ocean somewhere. However, there is still a chance it could hit land, and even somewhere that's inhabited.
Dangers from impact?
Given that we inhabit less than 15 per cent of Earth's surface, it's highly unlikely that the Kosmos 482 probe will impact in a populated area. However, in the case that it did, with a mass of around half a metric ton hitting the ground at 240 km/h, it would certainly cause damage, and is also capable of causing injuries as well.
Given its rugged design, it will probably crash as one single object, Langbroek explained. So, rather than forming a strewn field of debris across a wide area, any damage it did cause would be very localized, perhaps limited to a single building. For example, it could punch through a roof and embed itself in the floor.
A hole in the ceiling is seen above a meteorite resting on a bed inside a B.C. home, in October 2021. The owner said she was sound asleep when she was awakened by her dog barking, the sound of a crash through her ceiling, and the feeling of debris on her face. (Submitted by Ruth Hamilton)
Unlike a meteorite, which would be very cold to the touch when it landed, this object could actually be burning as it crashes. If so, it would pose a fire hazard to anything around the crash site.
Fortunately, "this probe is inert and has no nuclear materials," says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Also, the silver-zinc batteries used in Soviet spacecraft at the time are also considered to be non-toxic. Thus,so there is no expected danger of chemical exposure, either.
As we approach the day of reentry, these estimates and forecasts may improve, narrowing down the timing and thus giving us a better indication of where it will come down.
Check back for updates throughout the week.
Note regarding thumbnail image: To represent the upcoming crash of the Kosmos 482 Venus lander, a NASA image of the Soviet Venera 8 descent stage has been digitally added to an artist's impression of an ESA Cluster mission satellite burning up as it enters Earth's atmosphere, using the GNU Image Manipulation Program. (NASA/ESA (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)/Scott Sutherland)