Soviet-era spacecraft plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit

A Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than half a century after its failed launch to Venus.

Its uncontrolled entry was confirmed by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking. The Russians indicated it came down over the Indian Ocean, but other experts were uncertain of its location. The European Space Agency’s space debris office tracked the spacecraft’s doom after it failed to appear over a German radar station.

It was not immediately known how much, if any, of the half-ton spacecraft survived the fiery descent from orbit. Experts said ahead of time that some if not all of it might crash to Earth, given that it was built to withstand a landing on Venus, the solar system’s hottest planet.

The chances of anyone getting hit by spacecraft debris were exceedingly low, scientists said.

Launched in 1972 by the Soviet Union, the spacecraft known as Kosmos 482 was part of a series of missions bound for Venus. This one never made it beyond orbit around Earth, stranded there by a rocket malfunction.

Much of the spacecraft came tumbling back to Earth within a decade of the failed launch. No longer able to resist gravity’s tug as its orbit dwindled, the spherical lander — an estimated 3 feet across — was the last part of the spacecraft to come down. The lander was encased in titanium, according to experts, and weighed more than 1,000 pounds.

Any surviving wreckage will belong to Russia under a United Nations treaty.

After the spacecraft’s downward spiral, scientists, military experts and others could not pinpoint in advance when or where the spacecraft might come down. Solar activity added to the uncertainty, as did the spacecraft’s deteriorating condition after so long in space.

After so much anticipation, some observers were disappointed by the lingering uncertainty over the exact whereabouts of the spacecraft’s grave.

“If it was over the Indian Ocean, only the whales saw it,” Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek said via X.

As of Saturday afternoon, the U.S. Space Command had yet to confirm the spacecraft’s demise as it collected and analyzed data from orbit.

Space Command routinely monitors dozens of reentries each month. What set Kosmos 482 apart — and earned it extra attention from government and private space trackers — was that it was more likely to survive reentry, according to officials.

It was also coming in uncontrolled, without any intervention by flight controllers who normally target the Pacific and other vast expanses of water for old satellites and other space debris.

Dunn writes for the Associated Press. T