Image credit: Ralf Vandebergh
That soon-to-reenter Cosmos 482 is getting increased attention by satellite trackers – and new imagery provides some interesting details.
The former Soviet Union’s Cosmos 482 was lofted back in 1972. But that country’s attempted Venus probe ran amuck during its rocket-assisted toss to the cloud-veiled world. Payload leftovers were marooned in Earth orbit, specifically the spacecraft’s lander module/capsule intended to parachute onto the hellish landscape of Venus.
Venera 8 was one of a pair of Venus atmospheric lander probes designed for the spring 1972 launch window. The other mission, Cosmos 482, failed to leave Earth orbit.
Image credit: Hall of Venus/NPO Lavochkin
Uncertain factors
“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,” reports Marco Langbroek of SatTrackCam Leiden, the Netherlands.
“There are many uncertain factors in this though, including that this will be a long shallow reentry trajectory and the age of the object,” observes Langbroek.
Langbroek now pegs the current nominal forecast for its reentry on May 10, plus/minus 3.1 days.
Venera 8 artwork.
Image Credit: NPO Lavochkin
Compact ball
Meanwhile, satellite tracker
3 Comments
quercusa
Those of a certain age will remember this as the premise of the Six Million Dollar Man episode Death Probe (S4E13).
potato3732842
It would be pretty stereotypically Soviet to create a parachute system that only mostly (some of the Venera probes kinda crashed) works in the intended use case (short 1-way trip to Venus) but also somehow manages to work once way, way, way outside of its intended operating environment (50yr orbiting earth).
em-bee
when i first heard about this probe last week i was wondering, isn't this thing old and unique enough to warrant a mission to rescue and preserve it? combined with todays lower prices for a space flight, it might just be worth it.
and now it looks like it might just survive anyways. but then according to the article there also seems to be a second (identical?) model. so maybe it's not that important, except for maybe material analysis what does 50 years of exposure to space do to the material.