On 10 May, an uncontrolled reentry will take place of the so-called Cosmos-482 descent craft, a Soviet Venera landing capsule that launched 53 years ago.

This post provides live updates from ESA’s Space Debris Office on the atmospheric reentry of the Cosmos-482 descent craft. New updates will be added at the top of this page, so check back for the latest.

On 10 May, an uncontrolled reentry will take place of the so-called Cosmos-482 descent craft, a Soviet Venera landing capsule that launched 53 years ago. It was meant to land on Venus, but its launcher never escaped Earth’s gravity. Now, the descent craft will come down at a point between 52 degrees north and south of the equator. As the reentry comes closer, the predictions will become more precise in the updates directly below (last to first).

Venera-4 model at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is similar to the lander reentering Earth's atmosphere
Venera-4 model at the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics is similar to the lander reentering Earth’s atmosphere

Status 08 May 09:00 CEST

ESA’s Space Debris Office currently predicts that the reentry of the descent craft will take place at:

07:12 UTC (09:12 CEST) on 10 May 2025

The uncertainty in this prediction is now +/- 13.67 hours.

See further down for the latest prediction graphs.

Status 07 May 14:00 CEST

ESA’s Space Debris Office currently predicts that the reentry of the descent craft will take place at:

06:18 UTC (08:18 CEST) on 10 May 2025

The uncertainty in this prediction is now +/- 18.07 hours.

Latest prediction diagrams

This is the latest graph showing how the predicted time of reentry has changed over the last month. As we approach the reentry, the uncertainty in the prediction decreases. The remaining uncertainty is cause by the difficulty of modelling the atmosphere, the influence of space weather and the unknowns about the object itself, such as which way it is facing.

This is the latest graph showing how the altitude of the Venera capsule has changed over the last month, and how it is expected to change in the future.

As its orbit is not a perfect circle, two lines are shown:

  • The upper line shows the descent craft’s ‘apogee’ – the point in its orbit at which it is further from Earth.
  • The lower line shows the descent craft’s ‘perigee’ – the point in its orbit at which it is closest to Earth.

At any particular moment, the Venera capsule at an altitude somewhere between these two lines.

Values before the vertical line show real data obtained via observations of the capsule made using sensors on the ground. Values after the vertical line show how the capsule’s altitude is expected to evolve in the future, until it fragments into pieces at an altitude of roughly 80 km.

This is the latest available ‘ground track’. At the current predicted time of reentry, the capsule would be located approximately 10 km over the red marker, labelled COIW (centre of impact window). It is here that we currently expect the satellite to break up, but there is still a high uncertainty in the precise location where it will fall.

This is because the object might reenter at any time within the current uncertainty window of +/- 13.67 hours, and a different reentry time means it would be at a different location along the ground track. The lines of the ground track show where the satellite will be during the entire reentry time window, which at this point still includes multiple orbits around Earth.

Frequently asked questions

What is special about this reentry?
The landing module could reach the surface of Earth in one piece instead of breaking and burning up. The Venera landing capsule, launched in 1972 by the Soviet Union, was part of an attempted Venus probe which failed to escape low Earth orbit. The 495 kg lander was made to withstand the extremely harsh conditions of Venus’ hostile atmosphere and designed to 300 G’s of acceleration and 100 atmospheres of pressure. As a result, it might survive its reentry into the atmosphere.

In addition, the special, smooth aerodynamical shape of the spacecraft allows it to function as a measure of the density in very low Earth orbit. Every time the elliptical orbit passes through the perigee, it loses apogee height. The atmospheric drag on the object can be inferred from the altitude difference right until reentry. The design of most spacecraft is too complicated to make accurate measurements, but the Venera descent craft’s nearly spherical shape does allow it. This turns its reentry into an ‘accidental’ reentry science experiment.

How often do such reentries happen?
Satellites and rocket parts of moderate size reenter almost daily, while small-size tracked space debris objects reenter even more frequently. Pieces that survive have only very rarely caused any damage on the ground. With the increasing space traffic, we expect that reentry frequencies increase further in the future.

Can reentries cause injury?
The risk of any satellite reentry causing injury is extremely remote. The annual risk of an individual human being injured by space debris is under 1 in 100 billion. In comparison, a person is about 65 000 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

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