Failed Venus-bound spacecraft expected to crash into Earth this year, expert warns

Scientists have warned that a failed Venus-bound spacecraft orbiting Earth since decades could probably come down crashing back to Earth this year.

A 500kg Soviet spacecraft named Kosmos 482 was launched back in 1972 and was set to explore our neighboring planet Venus. However, after reaching Earth’s orbit, an engine failed and the craft broke into pieces.

Some of the pieces of the broken spacecraft fell back to Earth then but, scientists believed that the rest of them, around 40%-50%, remained up in space, orbiting Earth. Those pieces are expected to crash down back to Earth after half a century of being up as space debris, reported Newsweek.

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The crash was previously expected to happen between 2023 and 2025, but a new report by Space.com suggests that the Kosmos 428 will crash down as soon as this year as it is travelling at extremely fast speeds, orbiting Earth about once every 112 minutes. Thomas Dorman, who has been tracking the satellite, told the website that the craft should survive a re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere with ‘no problems’.

“It is interesting to note the apogee of the orbit is slowly starting to decay,” he told Space.com. “My guess right now is that re-entry is late this year to mid next year. But predicting its decay is as much of an art [as] it is science. The other issue is, nobody can forecast solar activity for the next year, which could affect the decay time.

Moreover, if the satellite does not burn up during re-entry, it is most likely to crash into the sea or probably an unpopulated land area.