Latest news with #Venera9
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
What to Know About the Soviet Spacecraft Plunging to Earth
Soviet space probe Venera 5 or 6 launched in January 1969. This is a still from the film 'The Storming of Venus' released on May 17, 1969. Credit - Sovfoto/Universal Images Group—Getty Images Time was, the Soviet Union fairly owned Venus. From 1961 to 1983, the U.S.'s old space race rival launched 16 probes, Venera 1 through Venera 16, that either flew by, orbited, or landed on Venus—with three of them failing en route. It's been decades since the Russians bothered with Venus, but this week, an artifact from that long-ago space program may very well bother us: Sometime between May 9 and May 11, an 1,100-lb Venus spacecraft known as Kosmos 482, which has been stuck in Earth orbit since 1972, will come crashing back to the ground, potentially threatening anyone on Earth living between 52° North and 52° South of the equator—which covers the overwhelming share of us. Here's what you need to know. Kosmos 482 was originally intended to be known as Venera 9. It was launched on March 31, 1972, just four days after its sister probe, Venera 8. That ship had a brief but glorious life. It arrived at Venus on July 22, 1972, spent close to an hour descending through the atmosphere, and landed at 6:24 a.m. local Venus time. (Local time on another world is calculated the same way it is on Earth—by measuring the angle of the sun relative to the meridians, or lines of longitude.) Once on the ground, Venera 8 lived for only 63 minutes, which is about what was expected given Venus's hellish conditions. The atmospheric pressure is 93 times greater than it is on Earth, with a sea level pressure of 1,350 pounds per square inch (psi) compared to just 14.7 psi here. The air is mostly carbon dioxide, which, together with Venus's greater proximity to the sun, means an average temperature 860°F—or more than 200 degrees hotter than the melting point of lead. That was the future that awaited Venera 9 too, but things didn't work out for what turned out to be a snakebit ship. After reaching Earth orbit, it fired its engine to enter what is known as a Venus transfer trajectory; that engine burn went awry, however, either cutting off too soon or not reaching a sufficient thrust to send the spacecraft on its way. Instead, it remained in an elliptical Earth orbit, with an apogee, or high point, of 560 miles, and a perigee, or low point, of 130 miles. There it has remained for the past 53 years. For its pains, Venera 9 lost not only its mission but its name. Abiding by Soviet-era nomenclature rules, spacecraft that remain in orbit around the Earth are dubbed Kosmos, followed by a number—in this case, Kosmos 482. In 2022, Marco Langbroek, a Dutch archaeologist who toggled over to sky watching mid-career and now lectures on space situational awareness at The Netherlands' Delft Technical University, completed a round of tracking Kosmos 482's orbit. In The Space Review, he wrote that the object would reenter Earth's atmosphere sometime in 2025 or 2026, due to the steady accumulation of drag by the atmosphere's upper reaches. Further tracking of the spacecraft's trajectory—by Langbroek, NASA, and the nonprofit Aerospace Corporation—now predicts the reentry will occur on May 10, at 12:42 a.m., plus or minus 19 hours. 'The reentry is an uncontrolled reentry,' Langbroek wrote on his website on April 24. 'It likely will be a hard impact. I doubt the parachute deployment system will still work after 53 years and with dead batteries.' Medallion which was delivered to the surface of planet Venus by the soviet space probe Venera 3 on March 1, 1966. Universal Images Group—Getty Ordinarily, even a spacecraft as big as Kosmos 482 would not pose much danger to people on the ground. The same atmospheric friction that causes most meteors to burn up before they reach the surface disposes of errant satellites the same way. It is mostly far larger objects, like the U.S.'s Skylab space station—which reentered in July, 1979, scattering debris across the Australian outback—that cause concern. But Kosmos 482 is different; it was intentionally designed to withstand Venus's pressure-cooker atmosphere, and even colliding with our own atmosphere at orbital speeds of 17,500 miles per hour, it could at least partly survive its plunge. 'The risks involved are not particularly high, but not zero,' Langbroek writes. 'With a mass of just under 500 kg and 1-meter size, risks are somewhat similar to that of a meteorite impact.' All of the land masses in Earth's southern hemisphere are within the reentry footprint, along with the large majority of the north. Most of Russia, the U.K. the Balkans, Scandinavia, Canada, and Alaska are among the few places out of harm's way. Still, nobody is recommending calling the pets inside and crouching in fallout shelters. More than 70% of the Earth's surface is water, meaning a 70% chance of a splashdown as opposed to a hard landing. What's more, the landmasses in the reentry zone include largely unpopulated areas like the Sahara, Atacama, and Australian deserts. It would, of course, be best if Kosmos 482 disintegrates entirely on reentry, but space sentimentalists are hoping that at least a bit of it survives. Venera probes, like all of the Soviet spacecraft sent to the moon and the planets, carried along with them small memorial coins, medals and titanium pennants—embossed with the hammer and sickle, the likeness of Lenin, the Earth, and more. Kosmos 482 will return to a world very different from the one it left—with the Soviet Union itself consigned to history. This week, after more than half a century, a bit of commemorative metal just may survive the empire that sent it aloft. Write to Jeffrey Kluger at
Time Magazine
07-05-2025
- Science
- Time Magazine
What to Know About The Soviet-Era Venus Spacecraft Plunging Back to Earth
Time was, the Soviet Union fairly owned Venus. From 1961 to 1983, the U.S.'s old space race rival launched 16 probes, Venera 1 through Venera 16, that either flew by, orbited, or landed on Venus—with three of them failing en route. It's been decades since the Russians bothered with Venus, but this week, an artifact from that long-ago space program may very well bother us: Sometime between May 9 and May 11, an 1,100-lb Venus spacecraft known as Kosmos 482, which has been stuck in Earth orbit since 1972, will come crashing back to the ground, potentially threatening anyone on Earth living between 52° North and 52° South of the equator—which covers the overwhelming share of us. Here's what you need to know. Kosmos 482 was originally intended to be known as Venera 9. It was launched on March 31, 1972, just four days after its sister probe, Venera 8. That ship had a brief but glorious life. It arrived at Venus on July 22, 1972, spent close to an hour descending through the atmosphere, and landed at 6:24 a.m. local Venus time. (Local time on another world is calculated the same way it is on Earth—by measuring the angle of the sun relative to the meridians, or lines of longitude.) Once on the ground, Venera 8 lived for only 63 minutes, which is about what was expected given Venus's hellish conditions. The atmospheric pressure is 93 times greater than it is on Earth, with a sea level pressure of 1,350 pounds per square inch (psi) compared to just 14.7 psi here. The air is mostly carbon dioxide, which, together with Venus's greater proximity to the sun, means an average temperature 860°F—or more than 200 degrees hotter than the melting point of lead. That was the future that awaited Venera 9 too, but things didn't work out for what turned out to be a snakebit ship. After reaching Earth orbit, it fired its engine to enter what is known as a Venus transfer trajectory; that engine burn went awry, however, either cutting off too soon or not reaching a sufficient thrust to send the spacecraft on its way. Instead, it remained in an elliptical Earth orbit, with an apogee, or high point, of 560 miles, and a perigee, or low point, of 130 miles. There it has remained for the past 53 years. For its pains, Venera 9 lost not only its mission but its name. Abiding by Soviet-era nomenclature rules, spacecraft that remain in orbit around the Earth are dubbed Kosmos, followed by a number—in this case, Kosmos 482. In 2022, Marco Langbroek, a Dutch archaeologist who toggled over to sky watching mid-career and now lectures on space situational awareness at The Netherlands' Delft Technical University, completed a round of tracking Kosmos 482's orbit. In The Space Review, he wrote that the object would reenter Earth's atmosphere sometime in 2025 or 2026, due to the steady accumulation of drag by the atmosphere's upper reaches. Further tracking of the spacecraft's trajectory— by Langbroek, NASA, and the nonprofit Aerospace Corporation —now predicts the reentry will occur on May 10, at 12:42 a.m., plus or minus 19 hours. 'The reentry is an uncontrolled reentry,' Langbroek wrote on his website on April 24. 'It likely will be a hard impact. I doubt the parachute deployment system will still work after 53 years and with dead batteries.' Ordinarily, even a spacecraft as big as Kosmos 482 would not pose much danger to people on the ground. The same atmospheric friction that causes most meteors to burn up before they reach the surface disposes of errant satellites the same way. It is mostly far larger objects, like the U.S.'s Skylab space station —which reentered in July, 1979, scattering debris across the Australian outback—that cause concern. But Kosmos 482 is different; it was intentionally designed to withstand Venus's pressure-cooker atmosphere, and even colliding with our own atmosphere at orbital speeds of 17,500 miles per hour, it could at least partly survive its plunge. 'The risks involved are not particularly high, but not zero,' Langbroek writes. 'With a mass of just under 500 kg and 1-meter size, risks are somewhat similar to that of a meteorite impact.' All of the land masses in Earth's southern hemisphere are within the reentry footprint, along with the large majority of the north. Most of Russia, the U.K. the Balkans, Scandinavia, Canada, and Alaska are among the few places out of harm's way. Still, nobody is recommending calling the pets inside and crouching in fallout shelters. More than 70% of the Earth's surface is water, meaning a 70% chance of a splashdown as opposed to a hard landing. What's more, the landmasses in the reentry zone include largely unpopulated areas like the Sahara, Atacama, and Australian deserts. It would, of course, be best if Kosmos 482 disintegrates entirely on reentry, but space sentimentalists are hoping that at least a bit of it survives. Venera probes, like all of the Soviet spacecraft sent to the moon and the planets, carried along with them small memorial coins, medals and titanium pennants —embossed with the hammer and sickle, the likeness of Lenin, the Earth, and more. Kosmos 482 will return to a world very different from the one it left—with the Soviet Union itself consigned to history. This week, after more than half a century, a bit of commemorative metal just may survive the empire that sent it aloft.
ABC News
02-05-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Soviet spacecraft Kosmos 482 expected to crash back to Earth next week. Here's what you need to know
A Soviet-era spacecraft that never made it to Venus more than 50 years ago is finally about to plunge back to Earth. That's according to academic and satellite watcher Marco Langbroek from Delft Technical University in the Netherlands, who has been keeping an eye on the Soviet spacecraft called Kosmos 482 for the past few years. So, as we get closer to the deadline, here are five quick questions on Kosmos 482, and what you need to know about the falling spacecraft. What is Kosmos 482? The lander, called Kosmos 482, was part of the Venera program to gather information about Venus. Other probes in that program — such as Venera 9 — took some of the only pictures ever captured of the Venusian surface. But Kosmos 482 wasn't so lucky. The launch set-up for Kosmos 482 may have been similar to the Venera 8 carrier bus and landing probe. ( Wikimedia: Lavochkin/Roscosmos, ) On March 31, 1972, it launched, and successfully made it into Earth's orbit. But, according to reports, during the second stage of the mission an incorrectly set timer botched the job, and the spacecraft has stayed in Earth's orbit ever since. The spacecraft had already split into four pieces, and it's now thought that the object is just one of those pieces — the landing module. According to Dr Langbroek, modelling suggests the object is about 480 kilograms and one metre in size. When will it re-enter the atmosphere? Kosmos 483 has had a good 53 years up there, but all things that come up must come down, and Dr Langbroek's modelling suggests that'll be May 10, give or take a couple of days. Astronomers had known for a while that the spacecraft was soon to make its descent. The orbit of Kosmos 482 has been deteriorating since its failed launch in 1972. ( Graphic: ABC Science/NASA ) In the 1970s, the highest point of the orbit was almost 10,000 kilometres above Earth's surface, but now it's below 400km, and rapidly dropping. The closer it gets to re-entry, the more information we'll have about the exact date and time. Where will it land? Dr Langbroek said it's quite possible that the lander will survive re-entry because it was built to withstand a descent through the carbon dioxide-thick atmosphere of Venus. But at this point in time it's too early to tell where the spacecraft will land — or if it will burn up before landing. Experts doubt the parachute system would work after so many years and the heat shield may also be compromised after so long in orbit. It would be better if the heat shield fails, which would cause the spacecraft to burn up during its dive through the atmosphere, Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said. But if the heat shield holds, "it'll re-enter intact and you have a half-ton metal object falling from the sky," Dr McDowell said. Kosmos 482 may look a bit like this when it lands back on Earth. ( Supplied: NASA ) If the probe does survive its firey re-entry, Dr Langbroek said it could come down anywhere between 51.7 degrees north and south latitude, or as far north as London and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, almost all the way down to South America's Cape Horn. But since most of the planet is water, "chances are good it will indeed end up in some ocean", Langbroek said. A lot of space junk ends up in a remote part of the Pacific known as the "spacecraft cemetery". But spacecraft making an uncontrolled re-entry can land anywhere. In 2022, debris from an out-of-control Parts of a Should I be worried? Probably not. "While not without risk, we should not be too worried," Dr Langbroek said. The object is relatively small and, even if it doesn't break apart, "the risk is similar to that of a random meteorite fall, several of which happen each year. You run a bigger risk of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime." The chance of the spacecraft actually hitting someone or something is small, he added. "But it cannot be completely excluded." The object is likely to be tracked until it lands, including when it finally re-enters the atmosphere. Venus was supposed to be the destination for Kosmos 482 to collect data, but the probe never escaped Earth's low orbit. ( Wikimedia: ESA/DLR/VMC/AndreaLuck, ) Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist at Flinders University, said that if bits of it do make it to Earth and land in Australia, there are some things to be aware of. "Don't touch it, because sometimes there are toxic elements," she said. "Report it immediately to the Australian Space Agency, and they will then enter negotiations with the Russian government." De-orbited space objects that make it back to Earth are owned by the country that sent them up into orbit, under the Outer Space Treaty. The first two parts of Kosmos 482 landed in New Zealand just a few days after it launched, but the Russians refused to claim it. "They can't pretend it's not theirs this time," Dr Gorman said. Is this going to happen more often? This 53-year-old spacecraft is a "pretty unique interplanetary mission" according to Dr Gorman, so re-entries like this are going to remain rare. "There's 26 locations on Venus where human spacecraft have landed," she said. " But there's a hell of a lot of Russian spacecraft that never made it to Venus — this isn't the only failed one. " Today though, interplanetary spacecraft failures are not the only thing we have to worry about. Earth has many more satellites in orbit than at any other point of history. While most of these satellites will burn up in the atmosphere, some will make it through to the ground. "There is going to be a lot more [space junk] in the future." Science in your inbox Get all the latest science stories from across the ABC. Your information is being handled in accordance with the Email address Subscribe
