The soviet spacecraft, Cosmos 482, launched in 1972, is set to make an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere within the next few days. It is likely to make it to the surface due to its heat shield.
This thread is for updates, until it re-enters and makes it to the ground.
Satellite TLE tracker, Kosmos 482 link …
The following tracker is much more accurate (than the one above) …
(You have to search for Cosmos 482 and select it first.)
oh wow! this is cool! amazing.
woah! it was up there the whole time?!
Yes
impressive engineering!
yap. the soviets were ahead of the americans for most of the technological race. the feat of landing on the moon was the bigger one the americans did. other than that? It was all Russia that dominated space first
A car-sized satellite could strike London
The “Kosmos-482” probe was launched into space back in 1972 to gather data from the surface of Venus, but it malfunctioned and remained in Earth’s orbit. It is now expected to “return” to Earth between May 7 and 13.
What this satellite is: – weighs approximately 500 kg
– may enter the atmosphere at a staggering speed of about 27,000 kilometres per hour
– predicted impact zone includes London, parts of Europe, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.
This is absolutely incredible that that thing stuck up in orbit for all of these decades. What a marvel of engineering.
