In 1972, the former Soviet Union launched an ambitious mission to Venus called Cosmos 482. That mission fell apart in Earth orbit. As I read the story put together, the upper stage failed to complete its mission. Parts of the payload were left in Earth orbit, specifically the spacecraft's lander module/capsule intended to parachute to the surface of Venus.
Read that date again. It's 53 years since that launch. Why is this even a lead-in to a story? People who track things in orbit say the Cosmos 482 lander is going to come back to Earth soon. According to Marco Langbroek of SatTrackCam in the Netherlands says:
"As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible that it will survive reentry through the Earth atmosphere intact, and impact intact. There are many uncertain factors in this though, including that this will be a long shallow reentry trajectory and the age of the object," observes Langbroek, who now pegs the current nominal forecast for its reentry on May 10, plus/minus 2.2 days.
What goes up must come down, right? Another amateur satellite tracker, also from the Netherlands, goes down a different road and takes photos of satellite.
Meanwhile, a second satellite tracker Ralf Vandebergh, also of the Netherlands, has snagged a first set of images of only the capsule in Earth orbit. "We see a clear compact ball! This set is already fantastic, I think," he said.
Telescopic images of the Soviet Cosmos 482 Venus descent craft in Earth's orbit taken by satellite tracker Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands. (Image credit: Ralf Vandebergh)
If it's too small to read for you, in the lower middle of the picture it says
the telescope is a 0.25m Newtonian, or just about a 10" mirror. It doesn't
give more details, but that's not a big, observatory-class telescope. Lots of
amateur astronomers have 10" reflectors. Mine is out in the shop.
Vandebergh notes that the Cosmos 482 is roughly 80 miles (130 kilometers) closer than the Starlink bus which, according to data, is around 1.3 meters by 2.7 meters. Clearly, the Starlink bus looks bigger than the Cosmos reentry vehicle, despite being farther away.
"Several frames seems to confirm what I thought to see in the 2014 images, [that] there is a compact ball but several frames show a weak elongated structure at one particular side of the ball," Vandebergh added. He has speculated in the past it was possible that this might be the parachute that came out.
...
"It is not impossible that the object is tumbling," Vandebergh notes, "so the chute would be sometimes visible," assuming that it is the chute. He cautioned that more time is needed to better analyze what’s showing up in the imagery.
That best analysis of the imagery is a work in progress, Vandebergh concluded, so stay tuned!
* - and since I picked a title that's the first words of a very famous song from the late '60s I have to include this.
And now I'll whip out my tinfoil hat collection and select one for the occasion.
ReplyDeleteWhy? Because are we sure that it was a failure of a planetary probe? Or could the Soviets launch a surveillance satellite under the cover of said planetary probe?
The only chance of knowing is if enough of it survives reentry to open it up and see what's inside. I can't imagine it could be working after 53 years. Maybe there's a document over in Roscosmos or some secure place.
DeleteMaybe it just wants to join with the creator.
ReplyDeleteOK, sorry to everyone who will be inflicted with what my brain is about to spit out: (If you think this is bad, just consider I have to put up with this 24/7)
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard a Soviet era Venus probe was going to crash land here on earth, the synapses spit out an episode of the Six Million Dollar Man from the 70's where the evil Soviets had a Venus probe fail and fall back to earth and start destroying America cause it thinks it's exploring Venus. And no one can turn it off or stop it cause it's built for the Hellish conditions on Venus.
I wouldn't bet on this one being operational after landing though...
MSG Grumpy
The X-37b has a cargo bay sufficient to return the Cosmos 482 to earth. We do not have the equipment to grab / despin the Cosmos 482. If we had a grabber, the Falcon 9 boosters might be capable of bringing the Cosmos 482 back. It would only be of historic interest. Being from 1972, the tech is pre integrated circuit.
ReplyDeleteI have never understood why astronomers have not launched a small telescope to take pictures of things like Cosmos 482, the Kuiper satellites or the Space shuttle's tiles before it crashed and burned.
The US had satellites able to take pictures of the Shuttle tiles before it crashed. JSC decided to not even attempt doing so.
DeleteThe Horrible Space Telescope had the capability, as did numerous NRO satellites.
Thirty five years ago, I worked with someone who worked on the Space Shuttle. I was told that there were a few missing tiles on the first orbital shuttle and they had the numbers printed on the surrounding tiles. How that was done was not revealed.
DeleteThe song that came to my mind was this:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCXL1ytil-w