After looping through space for 53 years, a wayward Soviet spacecraft called Kosmos-482 returned to Earth, entering the dense layers of the planet’s atmosphere at 9.24 am (Moscow time) on Saturday, according to Roscosmos, the Russian state corporation that runs the space programme.
Designed to land on Venus, Kosmos-482 may have remained intact during its plunge. It splashed down in the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia, Roscosmos said.
Kosmos-482 was launched on March 31, 1972, but became stranded in Earth’s orbit after one of its rocket boosters shut down prematurely. The spacecraft’s return to Earth was a reminder of the Cold War competition that prompted science fiction-like visions of Earth-bound powers projecting themselves out into the solar system.
“It recalls a time when the Soviet Union was adventurous in space — when we were all maybe more adventurous in space,” said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics who tracks objects launched into orbit. “It’s a bit of a bittersweet moment in that sense.”
While America had won the race to the moon, the Soviet Union, through its Venera programme, kept its sights on Venus, Earth’s twisted sister.
From 1961 to 1984, the Soviets launched 29 spacecraft towards the shrouded world next door. Many of those missions failed, but more than a dozen did not. The Venera spacecraft surveilled Venus from orbit, collected atmospheric observations while gently descending through its toxic clouds, scooped and studied soil samples and sent back the first, and only, pictures we have from the planet’s surface.
“Kosmos-482 is a reminder that, 50 years ago, the Soviet Union reached the planet Venus. Here is a physical artifact of that project, of that time,” said Asif Siddiqi, a historian at Fordham University who specialises in Soviet-era space activities. “There’s something oddly strange and compelling to me about this, about how the past still continues to orbit the Earth.”
Half a century later, as nations plot a return to the moon and fling their probes towards Mars, Jupiter and various asteroids, a lonely Japanese space probe is the only vehicle orbiting Venus.
During the space race, putting boots on the moon was the biggest prize — but the other worlds in our solar system were calling, too. As the US focussed increasingly on Mars, the Soviet Union turned its sights towards the second rock from the sun.
“Both sides had an interest in Mars at that time, but Venus was an easier target,” said Cathleen Lewis, curator of international space programs and spacesuits at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum.
Nearly the same size as Earth, Venus is often referred to as its twin. It is sheathed in a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and hidden beneath miles of sulfuric acid clouds. A casualty of a runaway greenhouse effect, the Venusian surface is a sweltering 870° Fahrenheit (465° Celcius), and crushed by atmospheric pressures about 90 times greater than those of Earth.
“How do you build something that can survive a journey across the solar system, get to a planet through a thick atmosphere, get to the ground and not melt or be crushed, and take pictures?” Dr Siddiqi asked.
New York Times News Service