A Soviet Spacecraft Is About to Crash Back to Earth After Being Stuck in Orbit for 53 Years
The Cosmos 482 lander was intended to reach Venus, but it has instead been circling Earth since 1972
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In 1972, the Soviet Union’s Venera 8 spacecraft became the second ever to land on Venus. It operated for 50 minutes in the planet’s harsh environment before succumbing to the intense heat. But this intrepid lander once had a sister probe named Cosmos 482. It launched four days after Venera 8 but was unable to escape low-Earth orbit and broke apart.
While several pieces of the spacecraft burned up quickly, others remained in orbit. Now, 53 years later, one of them is about to return to our planet’s atmosphere—and potentially reach the surface.
“In the second week of May 2025, an unusual object will re-enter. It concerns the Cosmos 482 descent craft,” Marco Langbroek, an amateur satellite watcher and author of the SatTrackCam satellite tracking blog, writes in a post. “This object is the lander module from a 1972 failed Soviet Venera mission.”
It’s currently impossible to predict exactly when and where the re-entry will take place. According to modeling by Langbroek and his colleague Dominic Dirkx, the object will re-enter between the latitudes of 52 North and 52 South—that’s a large portion of the globe, spanning from as far north as England to as far south as the Falkland Islands off Argentina’s coast. The window for re-entry sits around May 10, depending on solar activity.
As reported by EarthSky’s Eddie Irizarry, when the sun’s activity intensifies, Earth’s upper atmosphere heats up and expands. This creates more atmospheric drag—or air friction—on low-orbiting objects, which slows them down and hastens their fall. Needless to say, the satellite will be making an uncontrolled re-entry.
First full high res images #Cosmos482 landing capsule, the intended Venera spacecraft that is stuck in Earth orbit for 53 years and soon will reenter. Angular comparison to Starlink satellite bus, but with 130km range difference. We clearly see a compact round object! More soon! pic.twitter.com/8aSUKr3Rv4
— Ralf Vandebergh (@ralfvandebergh) April 29, 2025
Being part of the Venera program, this spacecraft is especially hardy. While it might break apart and burn up as it plummets through Earth’s atmosphere, the lander was built to withstand the hot and dense atmosphere of Venus—so it might survive the descent and cause an impact.
“The risks involved are not particularly high, but not zero,” Langbroek continues, likening the potential future impact of the 1,091-pound module to that of a meteorite. Luckily, much of the planet is ocean, meaning any remaining pieces of the spacecraft that make it to the ground will probably splash into the water; and the odds that it will re-enter over a populated area are low, writes EarthSky.
Scientists and satellite watchers will be able to narrow down their predictions about the potential impact as the re-entry date approaches.
This isn’t the first time that Cosmos 482 has made headlines. In 2019, warnings that the lander might soon crash to Earth turned out to be false alarms. Back then, the European Space Agency (ESA) told Forbes’ Eric Mack that Cosmos 482 was most likely going to re-enter in the mid 2020s. While the space agency’s prediction seems to be coming true, Langbroek emphasizes that uncertainties will remain until the very last moment.
Thomas Dorman, a satellite tracker from Oklahoma, echoed that idea to Space.com’s Leonard David six years ago. “Trying to study Cosmos 482 and what remains of the spacecraft is like attempting to gain an understanding and insight of a shipwreck that is moving at hypervelocity speeds, under ever-changing lighting conditions from the surface of an ocean,” he said, “this ocean being several hundred miles deep, with only a few seconds to see it at its closest and at best a few times a year!”
As reported by the Watchers’ Teo Blašković, it doesn’t seem like the Russian authorities have issued any statement regarding Cosmos 482. Come May 10—or thereabouts—if the lander re-enters in your region, it will likely look like a very bright and slow meteor, potentially with some fragments, reports EarthSky.
