Kosmos 482, a Soviet-era military spacecraft that launched in 1972, has made news after recently re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. That’s a lot of time in orbit and news of its return! Originally intended for a mission to Venus, the spacecraft never left Earth’s gravitational pull and instead broke into four pieces, which have been circling the planet since its launch. Recent analysis suggests that part of Kosmos 482’s lander capsule, designed to endure the intense conditions of Venus’s atmosphere, has fallen back to Earth, with the re-entry occurring over the Indian Ocean in 2022.
To start, engineers focused on building a strong heat shield for the mission’s lander capsule. This highly stable macrocyclic compound gives it the physical properties needed to endure deep time temperature and pressure. This configuration was likely key to the spacecraft’s success in surviving re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere. The iconic spherical shape of the capsule. Its dark bottom half stands out splendidly against the lighter top half and features plenty of perfectly circular portholes.
International space agencies have been on high alert regarding Kosmos 482 ever since it entered orbit. Experts say the odds of its re-entry causing major damage are very low. This is primarily due to the fact that roughly 70% of Earth’s surface is composed of oceans.
Human-made re-entries into Earth’s atmosphere happen almost every day, with larger spacecraft re-entering at least once a week. Stijn Lemmens, an expert on space debris from European Space Agency (ESA), explained the rarity of being hit by that debris.
“It’s much more likely that you win the lottery than that you get impacted by this piece of space debris,” – Stijn Lemmens
Kosmos 482’s descent was uncontrolled, Lemmens said that more design needs to go into ensuring spacecraft are safe by design.
“They should be designed in such a way that they can take themselves out of orbit safely, preferably by doing controlled re-entries,” – Stijn Lemmens
Kosmos 482 is but one in a long line of missions launched by the Soviet Union to explore Venus. Yet its inability to get beyond Earth’s orbit further points to the daunting obstacles met in space exploration at that time period. The spacecraft’s journey is now a historical reminder of humanity’s early attempts at interplanetary exploration.
