By Stephanie Dwilson | 2025-05-13

When the Soviet Union's Kosmos 482 lander began its uncontrolled descent back to Earth, astronomers around the world watched closely.

The failed Venus lander's crashdown May 10 ultimately did not cause any known injuries or damage, but its chaotic return highlighted the unpredictable and potentially dangerous nature of space debris.

Kosmos 482 was part of the Soviet Union's Venus exploration program. It was launched in 1972, but its rocket malfunctioned and the lander probe became stuck in an elliptical orbit around Earth instead.

Over the past 50 years, the probe's orbit decayed until it finally began its uncontrolled return to Earth this month.

'Hard impact'

What concerned observers the most was the lander probe's construction.

"As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible that it will survive reentry through the Earth atmosphere intact, and impact intact," Dutch satellite tracker Marco Langbroek wrote on his blog before the module's reentry.

"It likely will be a hard impact: I doubt the parachute deployment system will still work after 53 years and with dead batteries," Langbroek predicted. "There are many uncertain factors in whether the lander will survive reentry though, including that this will be a long shallow reentry trajectory, and the age of the object."

Space agencies and trackers tried to predict where Kosmos 482 would land. Estimates ranged widely from the South Pacific to western Europe, the Indian Ocean or offshore Australia.

Predictions

Based on when radar tracking of the lander was lost, the European Space Agency (ESA) says it may have crashed into the ocean early May 10. No injuries have been reported.

"As the descent craft was not spotted over Germany at the expected 07:32 UTC / 09:32 CEST pass by our colleagues at Fraunhofer FHR [Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques, in Germany], it is most likely that the reentry occurred on the track between 06:04 UTC and 07:32 UTC," the ESA said. "We have not received so far any reports on visual direct observations of the final re-entry, or on any impacts on ground."

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, released a statement on where it said the Kosmos may have landed.

"The spacecraft entered the dense layers of the atmosphere at 9:24 Moscow time, 560km west of Middle Andaman Island, and fell into the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta," it said.

Unknowns

There are still debates as to exactly where Kosmos 482 landed.

Some observers noted that a magnetic anomaly at the Cocos-Keeling magnetometer station may have confirmed the crash west of Jakarta.

However, Langbroek wrote on X that he was not convinced this anomaly matched the craft's crashdown.

"To be clear: at the time of the reported 'anomaly', 6:18 UTC, the probe was located near 29N, 72E, above Pakistan/India, not near Cocos Island. It should have passed Cocos Island 13 minutes later, around 6:31 UTC. A few minutes time difference is possible, but 13 minutes is a lot," he said.

While astronomers lack enough data to know exactly where Kosmos 482 crashed, the good news is that even if it survived reentry, it appears to have crashed safely in the ocean.

"Because the probe was designed to withstand entry into the Venus atmosphere, it is possible it survived reentry, but has landed in the ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia," according to NASA.

Although the probe's return ended without incident, its unpredictable descent is a reminder of the risks posed by aging satellites and space debris.