Soviet-era spacecraft ‘likely’ to have re-entered Earth’s atmosphere

Part of a spacecraft in the Soviet era is likely to have reinstated the earth’s atmosphere after being trapped in orbit for more than half a century, the European space agency said.

Kosmos 482, which was launched in 1972 for a mission to Venus, never took it out of the earth orbit and rather burst into four pieces that have been running on the planet for more than five decades.

The EU surveillance and monitoring center (SST) said that a fragment – considered the landing – “most likely” has reintegrated the atmosphere around 06:16 GMT (07:16 BST) on Saturday.

It is not clear if the object fell to the ground or burned in the atmosphere.

We also do not know where the object has returned to the atmosphere.

Although there are many experts who do not know the start of the object, 70% of the land is covered by the sea, so it is unlikely that it has caused significant damage.

“It is much more likely for you to gain from the lottery than what you are affected by this piece of space debris,” said Stijn Lemmens, main analyst of the European space agency.

The Kosmos 482 Landder capsule was built to survive the extreme heat and pressure of the atmosphere of Venus, which means that it had a robust thermal shield and a lasting structure.

This is why experts think that he may have survived an uncontrolled descent through the atmosphere of the earth.

However, the Kosmos 482 parachute system, initially intended to slow down the descent from landing to Venus, is probably degraded after more than 50 years in space.

Mr. Lemmens explained that “the start of the school year of human manufacturing in the earth’s atmosphere occurs quite frequently”. He said it happens every week for larger and daily spaceships for the little ones.

Objects generally burn in the earth’s atmosphere before reaching the ground.

The long booster of March 5 of China returned to the Indian Ocean in 2022, and the Tiangong-1 space station was mainly burned on the Pacific in 2018.

Kosmos 482 is now closely followed by international space agencies.

Lemmens said that future spacecrafts “should be designed so that they can withdraw from the orbit safely, preferably by making controlled turned on.”

This would allow precise predictions of landing places, reducing the risk of any debris having an impact on populated areas and the protection of people and goods while “managing the environmental impact of space debris”.