Spacewatch v2.0(Official Science Topic)

Subject: Spacewatch v2.0(Official Science Topic)

obi_jon 8.05.25 - 09:02pm
A soviet era spacecraft is set to crash back to earth at some point in the next few days. Kosmos 482 was launched 51yrs ago on a mission to land on Venus but due to a fault with the rocket's fuel system it failed to reach the required escape velocity and ended up getting stuck in a highly eliptical orbit around the earth, until now.

This thing isn't going to burn up on re-entry

, it was designed to land and survive in the extremely hostile Venusian atmosphere, so it's going to be fully intact when it hits the earth. * +

obi_jon 14.05.25 - 08:49am

@ obi_jon - 8.05.25 - 09:02pm
A soviet era spacecraft is set to crash back to earth at some point in the next few days. Kosmos 482 was launched 51yrs ago on a mission to land on Venus but due to a fault with the rocket's fuel system it failed to reach the required escape velocity and ended up getting stuck in a highly eliptical orbit around the earth, until now.

This thing isn't going to burn up on re-entry, it was designed to land and survive in the extremely hostile Venusian atmosphere, so it's going to be fully intact when it hits the earth.

Update: It appears to have splashed down harmlessly somewhere in the Indian Ocean on Saturday around 06:20hr(UTC). It's orbit was tracked by the ESA and was last seen crossing above Germany heading SE over Central Europe towards the Middle East before they eventually lost trace of it(indicating that it had re-entered). *