You are all aware of the uncontrolled reentry of the failed Soviet era COSMOS 482 Venera Venus lander tonight.
Here is the trajectory map from Aerospace Corp. with some added annotations to help make sense of it. It shows 6 orbital tracks over 8 hours centered around the expected reentry time. It will strike the ground along one of these tracks, but not between them. Reentry will occur near the northern end of the orbit.
Launch date: Mar 31, 1972
Weight: ~495 kg
Cosmos 482 (aka Kosmos 482) was a Soviet Union mission to Venus, launched in 1972, which failed to escape low orbit.
The Venera landing module was designed to descend into the extremely harsh and hostile atmosphere of Venus and to withstand 300 G’s of acceleration and 100 atmospheres of pressure. As a result, the 495 kg, 1-meter wide, almost spherical, probe is less likely to break up during reentry and might strike earth at ~242 km/h..
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/05/07/reentry-prediction-soviet-era-venera-venus-lander-cosmos-482-descent-craft/
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/04/kosmos-842-descent-craft-reentry.html
2/n
The graph below by Marco Langbroek shows the change in apogee and perigee over the past 1.5 years for the Kosmos 482 descent craft.
"Notably apogee has been coming down steadily, but in the past few months, perigee has started to come down too. Mid May 9 (today), the object was in a 194 x 126 km orbit, with apogee coming down by 40 km/day and perigee by 8 km/day."
https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=6073 shows a 200.9 x 134.8 km orbit with 51.9° inclination and 87.7 minute period.
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/04/kosmos-842-descent-craft-reentry.html
3/n
COSMOS 482 (KOSMOS 482), launched 31 March 1972, was an attempted Soviet Venus probe which failed to escape low Earth orbit. It is expected to crash back to Earth sometime around early 9 to 10 May 2025....
We can follow the orbit and track of the Cosmos 482 Venus landing craft on the web at https://www.n2yo.com/?s=6073
This is another good site with additional details -
https://www.satcat.com/sats/6073
🛰️
4/n
The impact speed of Cosmos 482 is estimated at ~242 km/h.
"With a mass of just under 500 kg and 1-m size, a TUDAT reentry analysis suggests an impact speed (after atmospheric deceleration) of about 65-70 meter per sec (~242 km/h), assuming the reentering lander did not break up or extensively ablate during reentry.
The kinetic energy at impact is similar to that of a 40-55 cm large (after ablation) meteorite fragment."
https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/04/kosmos-842-descent-craft-reentry.html
Also follow https://bsky.app/profile/marcolangbroek.bsky.social
5/n
Last update from Aerospace Corp. has narrowed the reentry time window of Kosmos 482 to 6 hours.
May 10th, 6:12 AM UTC +/- 3 hours.
So, the reentry window opens at 3:12 UTC (11:12 EDT).
Keep in mind that the orbital period of Cosmos 482 is ~1.5 hours.
6/n
Current position of Cosmos 482 is just past apogee in the southernmost location. Now coming back to make another run over western Africa.
Altitude at apogee was around 186.15 km, quite a drop from the 200 km apogee 7.5 hours ago.
COSMOS 482 (KOSMOS 482), launched 31 March 1972, was an attempted Soviet Venus probe which failed to escape low Earth orbit. It is expected to crash back to Earth sometime around early 9 to 10 May 2025....
Last apogee of Cosmos 482 was around 01:30 UTC, altitude = 183.26 km, 2.89 km lower than the previous one.
It's amazing that they keep updating the TLE, which precisely describes the orbit, since the orbit is now changing rapidly.
COSMOS 482 (KOSMOS 482), launched 31 March 1972, was an attempted Soviet Venus probe which failed to escape low Earth orbit. It is expected to crash back to Earth sometime around early 9 to 10 May 2025....
The time window for reentry of the Cosmos 482 Venus descent craft is now open.
Last perigee was around 2:12 UTC at an altitude of ~123 km.
COSMOS 482 (KOSMOS 482), launched 31 March 1972, was an attempted Soviet Venus probe which failed to escape low Earth orbit. It is expected to crash back to Earth sometime around early 9 to 10 May 2025....
Here is the graphic from post #1 again with a few more annotations showing the location and timing of Cosmos 482 along the tracks as of now and over the next few orbits.
Note that reentry is most likely to occur near perigee over northern latitudes. So, the next time to watch is around 4:30 UTC (12:30 a.m. EDT).
Ladies and Gentlemen, now is the time to place your bets.
The scientific forecast is for the Cosmos 482 Venus descent craft to come crashing down on earth during the next 3 orbits near perigee. What does you crystal ball and/or your physics model say?
11/n
Sorry, the votes in the poll above got wiped out because I fixed a typo.
The n2yo.com site is down, but this site is still up and running and displaying good data including altitude, although it is slow to connect.
Too much interest in this event tonight, which is a good thing, right?
https://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=6073#TOP
12/n
ESA is reporting radar-based observations of Cosmos 482 from Germany at 04:30 UTC and 06:04 UTC.
We do not know the fate of the descent craft after 06:04 UTC.
According to EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST), the Cosmos-482 Descent Craft decayed within the last estimated re-entry window (06:04 UTC ±20 minutes). Exact location is not known, but it lies somewhere along the yellow or green lines in the map below.
Since ESA reported a radar sighting in Germany at 06:04 UTC, the reentry probably took place along the green line.
https://www.eusst.eu/newsroom/eu-sst-monitors-reentry-object-cosmos-482/
14/n
Word from Roscosmos is that "According to calculations by specialists from TsNIIMash (part of Roscosmos), the spacecraft entered the dense layers of the atmosphere at 9:24 Moscow time (06:24 UTC), 560 km west of Middle Andaman Island, and fell into the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta."
The map below is from an article in the NY Times.
RIP Kosmos 482.
https://t.me/s/roscosmos_gk
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/science/kosmos-482-crash-soviet-spacecraft.html
15/n
@AkaSci please, not in #India or #Pakistan. I fear a "99 Luftballons" moment with so many falcons and concrete heads over there.
If it landed in #Ukraine, we will see just another 50 year old Soviet artifact getting towed by a tractor.
Saw no traces of something reentering on that pass, so it likely landed east of #Germany.
AkaSci 🛰️
Urwumpe