Latest news with #DavidCoward
West Australian
11-05-2025
- Science
- West Australian
Western Australia dodges bullet as Soviet-built Kosmos 482 lands in Indian Ocean, ending 53 years in orbit
WA had a 'lucky escape' after it avoided being hit by a doomed Soviet spacecraft at the weekend, with the State at one point right in the firing line. Kosmos 482 finally made its way out of orbit and back to Earth on Saturday after being launched by the Soviet Union in 1972. According to EU Space Surveillance and Tracking, the spacecraft likely landed in the Indian Ocean west of Indonesia after 2pm Perth time, just 38,000,000km away from its planned destination of Venus. While it appears the capsule ended up landing in the ocean, the uncontrolled nature of its re-entry meant there was a large degree of uncertainty as to where it would land, with some modelling predicting it could hit WA. University of Western Australia Professor David Coward, one of two Australian signatories to the International Asteroid Warning Network, a UN-backed planetary defence organisation, said WA was almost in the firing line. 'It was a lucky escape, it's all about probability,' he said on Sunday. 'The satellite track, because the satellite orbits the Earth is every 90 minutes or so, follows a slightly different track, one of the tracks crossed Western Australia around Exmouth and then exited WA around Esperance. 'There was a real probability and in fact if this probe had a delayed re-entry it would have re-entered over WA and in fact only yesterday the best prediction for re-entry was over Western Australia.' Encased in titanium and weighing in at almost half a tonne, Kosmos 482 was a landing module which never left orbit due to a malfunction of the launch vehicle. Professor Coward said the chances of the craft hitting a suburban area was always slim but the impact if it did could have been deadly. 'If it actually re-entered over a city, there could be a fatality,' he said. 'The probability of it actually causing injuries is quite remote, mainly because of the vastness of the land mass compared to the size of the satellite. 'The satellite would essentially be like a bullet, it travels at what's called terminal velocity which is hundreds of kilometres a second so it would have formed a crater. 'There would have been a small explosion, because the body is about a metre if I recall in size so it would have been like a projectile coming down from space.' According to Professor Coward international rules state the launcher of spacecrafts are responsible for collecting any space junk that returns onto Earth but it is unclear yet whether Kosmos 482 would be retrievable as it may have sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Perth Observatory's Matt Woods said WA was a magnet for space junk. In 2023, an old Indian rocket washed up on a beach in Green Head. And in 1979, Sky Lab famously plummeted back to Earth and crashed near Esperance. '(Kosmos 482) was designed to survive the atmosphere, so you don't really want that falling on you at any time,' Mr Woods said. 'This one was kind of rare in the sense that it was a failed mission to Venus, it just never escaped Earth's atmosphere,' he said. 'Basically what ended up happening was it just orbited around the Earth for ages until the orbit decayed so much that it came back after 50 years. 'But we do get a lot of space junk hitting our atmosphere and burning up in the atmosphere.'
Perth Now
11-05-2025
- Science
- Perth Now
WA's ‘lucky escape' from Soviet-era spacecraft landing
WA had a 'lucky escape' after it avoided being hit by a doomed Soviet spacecraft at the weekend, with the State at one point right in the firing line. Kosmos 482 finally made its way out of orbit and back to Earth on Saturday after being launched by the Soviet Union in 1972. According to EU Space Surveillance and Tracking, the spacecraft likely landed in the Indian Ocean west of Indonesia after 2pm Perth time, just 38,000,000km away from its planned destination of Venus. While it appears the capsule ended up landing in the ocean, the uncontrolled nature of its re-entry meant there was a large degree of uncertainty as to where it would land, with some modelling predicting it could hit WA. University of Western Australia Professor David Coward, one of two Australian signatories to the International Asteroid Warning Network, a UN-backed planetary defence organisation, said WA was almost in the firing line. 'It was a lucky escape, it's all about probability,' he said on Sunday. 'The satellite track, because the satellite orbits the Earth is every 90 minutes or so, follows a slightly different track, one of the tracks crossed Western Australia around Exmouth and then exited WA around Esperance. 'There was a real probability and in fact if this probe had a delayed re-entry it would have re-entered over WA and in fact only yesterday the best prediction for re-entry was over Western Australia.' UWA Professor David Coward said Western Australia could have been in the firing line from the re-entry of Kosmos 482. Credit: Unknown / Supplied Encased in titanium and weighing in at almost half a tonne, Kosmos 482 was a landing module which never left orbit due to a malfunction of the launch vehicle. Professor Coward said the chances of the craft hitting a suburban area was always slim but the impact if it did could have been deadly. 'If it actually re-entered over a city, there could be a fatality,' he said. 'The probability of it actually causing injuries is quite remote, mainly because of the vastness of the land mass compared to the size of the satellite. 'The satellite would essentially be like a bullet, it travels at what's called terminal velocity which is hundreds of kilometres a second so it would have formed a crater. 'There would have been a small explosion, because the body is about a metre if I recall in size so it would have been like a projectile coming down from space.' According to Professor Coward international rules state the launcher of spacecrafts are responsible for collecting any space junk that returns onto Earth but it is unclear yet whether Kosmos 482 would be retrievable as it may have sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Perth Observatory's Matt Woods said WA was a magnet for space junk. In 2023, an old Indian rocket washed up on a beach in Green Head. And in 1979, Sky Lab famously plummeted back to Earth and crashed near Esperance. '(Kosmos 482) was designed to survive the atmosphere, so you don't really want that falling on you at any time,' Mr Woods said. 'This one was kind of rare in the sense that it was a failed mission to Venus, it just never escaped Earth's atmosphere,' he said. 'Basically what ended up happening was it just orbited around the Earth for ages until the orbit decayed so much that it came back after 50 years. 'But we do get a lot of space junk hitting our atmosphere and burning up in the atmosphere.'
Perth Now
09-05-2025
- Science
- Perth Now
At 2pm on Saturday, this rogue spacecraft could hit WA
Nearly 46 years after the wreckage of the Skylab space station caused a sonic boom as it blazed a kaleidoscopic trail across the WA sky, another doomed spacecraft, Kosmos 482, is expected to crash to Earth on Saturday afternoon. And there's a slim chance it will hit WA. For years, scientists have been feverishly attempting to calculate Kosmos 482's exact re-entry point and potential impact zone, which will mark a fiery end to a failed mission to Venus that started at the height of the Cold War. UWA Professor David Coward is one of two Australian signatories to the International Asteroid Warning Network, a UN-backed planetary defence organisation, and said Kosmos 482 was on track to make re-entry around 2pm Perth time on Saturday. 'I haven't done the math, but (the chances of landing in WA are) probably, maybe one-in-1000, off the top of my head,' Professor Coward told The West Australian. This large storage cylinder from Skylab crashed to earth on remote Woorlba Station 230kms East of Norseman 22nd June 2009. Credit: Astrid Volzke / WA News However, Professor Coward, who also leads the Space Situational Awareness Node at UWA's International Space Centre, said a person has 'more chance of winning the lottery' than being struck by falling space debris. He said Kosmos 482 was being currently being tracked by radar and the most likely re-entry point was above WA, before the craft breaks up over Afghanistan some 20 to 30 seconds later. That's an indication of just how fast the spacecraft is travelling — more than 27,000km/h, although atmospheric friction will eventually slow it to under 300km/h. Ground tracking data for Kosmos 482 showing the flight path over the Earth. Credit: supplied The immense heat generated by this friction typically incinerates space junk before it reaches the Earth's surface, but Kosmos 482 is different. At nearly half a tonne in weight and roughly the size of a washing machine, this titanium alloy craft was built to survive such extreme conditions. 'Normally, you would predict a break-up of the satellite in the atmosphere, and nothing would return,' Professor Coward explained. 'This particular Kosmos is designed to land on Venus, it's not designed to land on Earth, and Venus is very hostile, with extremely high temperatures . . . so, in terms of an impact, it's highly, highly probable that this will impact the Earth.' Skylab made a big impact when a piece of the space station landed in the Nullarbor Plain. NASA officals inspect the piece on display in Kalgoorlie. Credit: supplied From 1961 to 1984, the former Soviet Union launched 29 spacecraft towards Venus as part of the Venera missions, with 10 successfully landing on the planet, three overshooting and falling into orbit around the Sun, and the rest suffering catastrophic failures on launch or during the journey. Kosmos 482 is actually the lander module from one of these missions that has survived in orbit for decades after the rest of the rocket failed to slip the surly bonds of Earth and fell back to the surface in 1972. With its spherical shape and sturdy construction, the craft is expected to travel through the atmosphere like a cannonball, rather than leaving a trail of burning debris as per Skylab. This large storage cylinder from Skylab crashed to earth on remote Woorlba Station 230kms East of Norseman on 22nd June 2009. Credit: Astrid Volzke / WA News The US space station left debris over a large area of WA in 1979, some of which is currently on display in the Esperance Museum. Professor Coward said WA was a 'hub for space surveillance', a role that is set to become even more critical in future as the space surrounding Earth gets increasingly crowded. For instance, there is a SpaceX Starlink satellite re-entering the atmosphere every day, and this is only getting worse. 'We need to understand what's happening in the skies above us, and what are any potential threats, whether it's accidental or purposeful,' Professor Coward said.
