*After more than 50 years, a failed Soviet spacecraft originally bound for Venus is about to crash into Earth*
Paul Dorian
An artist's impression of a satellite reentry through Earth's atmosphere. Credit European Space Agency/D. Ducros
Overview
This is certainly one of those stories that has been a long time in the making...a 53-year-old Soviet spacecraft that was originally bound for Venus is set to crash into Earth in ten days or so. The spacecraft suffered an engine anomaly and failed to escape low Earth orbit, and it is now expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry around the 10th of May. This spacecraft was built to withstand extreme heat so it is likely that parts of the spacecraft can survive the descent through our atmosphere and crash on Earth.
The sun has been quite active in recent weeks as it closes in on its solar maximum phase and when activity intensifies, the Earth’s upper atmosphere heats up and expands. This creates more atmospheric drag - or air friction - on low-orbiting objects, which slows them down and hastens their fall. Credit spaceweather.com, NASA, smithsonianmag.com
Details
It was late March of 1972 when the Soviet Union’s Cosmos 482 was launched in Kazakhstan, but that attempted Venus probe failed as the upper stage of the Soyuz booster cut off prematurely leaving the payload marooned in an elliptical Earth orbit, according to NASA. The spacecraft broke apart into four pieces with two of the pieces re-entering two days after launch and the other two, believed to be the payload and detached upper-stage engine unit, entered a higher orbit. As of now, it is hard to determine exactly when the spacecraft will re-enter, but the current estimate is May 10th – depending on solar activity which can impact atmospheric drag - and roughly somewhere between 52 degrees North and 52 degrees South which is a large portion of the globe. Scientists and satellite watchers will be able to narrow down their predictions about the potential impact as the re-entry date approaches. The chances of spacecraft debris landing in an inhabited area are low, but not zero…there is a greater likelihood of it falling into an ocean.
Workers prepare Venera 4, a Soviet space probe, for its flight to Venus' atmosphere in 1967. Credit Sovfoto / Universal Images Group via Getty Images, smithsonianmag.com
According to space.com, the Cosmos 482 was a sister probe to the Venera 8 spacecraft which successfully landed on Venus in July of 1972...the second craft to successfully land on Venus. That second probe relayed data from Venus for just over 50 minutes before succumbing to the planet’s harsh conditions. The first spacecraft to land on Venus was the Soviet Venera 7 in December of 1970 and it transmitted data for 23 minutes before being destroyed by the extreme heat and pressure.
Meteorologist Paul Dorian
Arcfield
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