this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
36 points (100.0% liked)

Space & Astronomy

1063 readers
92 users here now

A community to discuss space & astronomy through a STEM lens

Rules

  1. Be respectful and inclusive. This means no harassment, hate speech, or trolling.
  2. Engage in constructive discussions by discussing in good faith.
  3. Foster a continuous learning environment.

Also keep in mind, mander.xyz's rules on politics

Please keep politics to a minimum. When science is the focus, intersection with politics may be tolerated as long as the discussion is constructive and science remains the focus. As a general rule, political content posted directly to the instance’s local communities is discouraged and may be removed. You can of course engage in political discussions in non-local communities.

Related Communities

🔭 Science

🚀 Engineering

🌌 Art and Photography

Other Cool Links

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ZafiraHUN@mander.xyz
otter@lemmy.ca
Bitswap@lemmy.world
36
A soviet spacecraft (lander) launched in 1972 is forecast for uncontrolled re-entry ~May 10, 2025 (sattrackcam.blogspot.com)
submitted 3 days ago by paulhammond5155@lemmy.world to c/space@mander.xyz
7 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

The Kosmos 482 descent craft is the lander module from a 1972 failed Soviet Venera mission to Venus. The 500kg lander was designed to survive passage through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible that it could survive reentry through the Earth's atmosphere intact.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] paulhammond5155@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It doesn’t look like there is even an estimate yet of what part of the globe it will hit

Too early to predict that accurately. Our upper atmosphere expands and contracts depending on the activity of the sun, there can be large daily changes. An expanding atmosphere with slow the craft and it will de-obit quicker. A contracting atmosphere will allow the craft to stay in orbit a little longer. IIRC they won't have an accurate time or a better idea of the impact site until about a day before reentry. I guess some folk are saying there is only a chance of making it to the surface as they don't know if it is still intact.

At least one of the 'experts' that I've read firmly believes it will reach the surface as he analyzed its light curves a while back. I'm going with his prediction as that thing was built to survive tougher conditions than an Earth reentry. Odds are high that it will land in the ocean, but if it stays intact and hits land, then it'll make a new hole in any golf coarse that happened to be in its cross hairs ;)

News media will likely start to report on it, as it gets closer to May 9th :)

Watch this space :)