Failed Soviet Venus lander Kosmos 482 crashes to Earth after 53 years in orbit
35 comments
·May 10, 2025perihelions
The other recent threads,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43873531 ("Old Soviet Venus descent craft nearing Earth reentry (leonarddavid.com)" — 291 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43831602 ("After 53 years, a failed Soviet Venus spacecraft is crashing back to Earth (gizmodo.com)" — 50 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43944167 ("Cosmos 482 Descent Craft tracker (utexas.edu)") — 9 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43942194 ("Cosmos-482 descent craft re-entry prediction (esa.int)") — 5 comments
justinator
The entire Soviet Union Venus missions are absolutely fascinating. "Hardening" takes on a whole new meaning when you're preparing a craft to survive mere minutes on Venus' surface. I'm a little surprised their deep sea craft never got much attention.
deepsun
USSR focused on Venus, because at that time it wasn't apparent which one would be more interesting/accessible -- Venus or Mars.
And USSR didn't want to compete with US anymore, after lost the Moon race. USSR really did want the Moon too, after so many prior successes. So switching to Venus allowed to "split" the race.
lupusreal
The Soviet Union landed a rover on Mars almost 30 years before NASA. Unfortunately the lander it was tethered to, Mars 3, stopped communicating about two minutes after landing so the rover didn't get a chance to go into action.
Anyway, the Soviet Union's relative lack of success with Mars wasn't really for lack of trying. Space is hard.
floxy
>The Soviet Union landed a rover on Mars almost 30 years before NASA.
The Mars 3 landed on Mars in 1971:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_3
The NASA Viking program landed on Mars in 1976:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program
...but I guess that didn't rove.
HelloUsername
Related:
Old Soviet Venus descent craft nearing Earth reentry https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43873531 02-may-2025 280 comments
After 53 years, a failed Soviet Venus spacecraft is crashing back to Earth https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43831602 29-april-2025 46 comments
Soviet-era spacecraft plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43949025 10-may-2025 0 comments
A Soviet-era spacecraft built to land on Venus is falling to Earth instead https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43938644 09-may-2025 1 comment
thenthenthen
Apparently it crashed near Java in the Indian Ocean [0]. Any news on retrieval efforts?
asdefghyk
Any information on ocean depth in that area? Or did it float? for a while?
From NASA article - https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id... Apparently, it broke up too 4 pieces soon after launch time and it was the lander that was circling earth for 53 years..
From https://www.npr.org/2025/05/12/nx-s1-5395631/a-soviet-era-sp...
"...The Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a Telegram post that the spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere Saturday morning at 2:24 a.m. ET and landed in the Indian Ocean somewhere west of Jakarta, Indonesia. It said Kosmos 482 reentered the atmosphere about 350 miles west of Middle Andaman Island off the coast of Myanmar. ..."
NASA gave the same reentry time and landing location for the spacecraft in a post on its website...."
deepsun
Too expensive. It's very hard to find even an aircraft carrier at the surface, ocean is just too big. Metallic non-moving things at the bottom is easier, but it still often takes years to find a large sank ship, yet alone a small round spacecraft.
But there are many ocean hunters ready to jump on the assignment, if you secure funding.
nancyminusone
Darn. Where's an inexpensive carbon fiber based submarine when you need one?
kennethrc
It's been down there waiting!
rhcom2
Coming down at "145 miles per hour-plus" and a "mass of just under 500 kg and 1-meter size" I would imagine there are just pieces out there now.
deepsun
That's nothing compared to Venus. There it's 500C with sulfuric atmosphere.
pinewurst
A lot like New Delhi...
bell-cot
And ~1,300 psi at the surface, and a few other features.
On the upside - undeveloped property is readily available, and quite affordable.
SequoiaHope
Apparently it was quite dense as to be able to survive the Venetian atmosphere so there has been speculation it may stay somewhat intact.
perihelions
- "Venetian"
That one means "having to do with Venice". Of Venus would be "Venusian", "Venereal" (yes, really), or "Cytherean". Or, one of a dozen others—it's a Greek god-name; there's millennia of culture to drawn on.
There's an entire Wikipedia entry devoted to this adjective question,
rhcom2
It was suppose to come down with a parachute but fingers crossed.
squigz
That Italian atmosphere is really rough!
KyleBerezin
I wish we could push things like this into a higher orbit. High enough to not be a danger and to be preserved for future generations.
jl6
There’s a (very slim) chance this one is being preserved at the bottom of the Indian Ocean for whoever invents submersible scanner drone swarm tech to find it.
kortilla
Doing this requires immense amounts of energy because you need to match its velocity to safely bump it.
codedokode
It is not surprising that it remained intact for 53 years. In USSR, unlike modern times, all products were made to last, like refrigerators, motorcycles, TV sets or clothes, because there was not enough supply to replace them every year.
pezezin
We are talking about space junk, a dead chunk of metal just orbiting Earth until its inevitable decay. Saying that it was "intact" and "built to last" is disingenuous.
squigz
Weren't USSR products rather famously poorly built?
spyrja
I think "simple but rugged" would be a more apt description. Less moving parts than the US equivalent, easier to maintain, and usually fairly sturdy. On the other hand, since cost was a constant concern, Soviet equipment was generally not designed with aesthetics in mind. So "ugly but reliable" might be another way to put it!
codedokode
I saw still working after many years Soviet refrigerators, motorcycles and TV sets, so maybe they were built not that poorly after all. Of course there could be some survivorship bias, but generally modern (inexpensive) things seem to break earlier.
linksnapzz
Depends; they might not have had the most expensive materials available, or the trickiest assembly quality, but were often designed so that the inevitable repairs could be made quickly in the field by minimally-trained personnel.
See: Zaporozhets 968 vs. Hillman Imp, AK-47 vs. AR-15, T-72 vs. M1.
My favorite Six Million Dollar Man episode is where Steve Austin had to fight a Soviet Venus rover that accidently landed on Earth. It was autonomous, obviously, and because it was designed to survive on Venus, it was nearly indestructible.
No one comes up with plots like that anymore!