The spacecraft was designed to survive the dense atmosphere of Venus, so there was concern that it would burn up in the atmosphere and that if it had landed on land it could have caused severe damage. Fortunately, it landed in the sea.
53 After remaining stuck in orbit around the Earth, the Soviet spacecraft “Kosmos 482” crashed into the waters of the Indian Ocean.
The Cosmos-482 spacecraft crashed to Earth today (May 10) after orbiting the planet for more than five decades. Reentry occurred at 09:24 a.m. Israeli time (06:24 GMT) over the Indian Ocean, west of Jakarta, Indonesia, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos. Cosmos-482 appears to have fallen undamaged into the sea.
For more than 50 years, the Kosmos-482 spacecraft has survived in a high elliptical orbit around Earth thanks to unique features in its design and materials. The spacecraft, weighing about 495 kg and about 1 meter in diameter, was designed to cope with extreme conditions of pressure and acceleration in the air density of Venus, and consists of a thermally insulated titanium shell and an inner steel layer, which protected it from cosmic radiation, a thin atmosphere, and extreme changes in temperature. Its almost spherical shape reduced the wind stress around the body and wasted minimal energy in atmospheric drag, so it slowly lost altitude over the years.
The spacecraft was launched on March 31, 1972, aboard an SL-6/A-2-e launcher from Biokonor, as part of the Venera-4 mission that was planned to land on Venus. Due to a malfunction in the engine ignition, the spacecraft remained in a parking orbit around the Earth instead of a transfer orbit to Venus, and thus remained in an elliptical orbit that ranged from about 210 km at near-near (perigee) to almost 9,800 km at far-away (apogee). In this orbit, it spent most of its time climbing to apogee; near Earth it was still held in place by inertia and low atmospheric drag, and at high altitude it escaped almost unimpeded, which extended its orbital life to more than fifty years.
Additionally, the relatively simple electrical system—with energy-efficient lithium-steel batteries and integral radio antennas—required no maintenance or ongoing heating, so the spacecraft was not plagued by system fatigue like modern spacecraft complicated by delicate electronic components. The lack of moving or interlocking parts reduced the risk of breakage or entanglement that other spacecraft components experience.
The fact that Cosmos-482 is only now approaching an uncontrolled reentry provides a rare opportunity to study atmospheric drag in low-Earth orbit conditions. Each altitude drop measured over the past few months provides reliable measures of atmospheric density at altitudes between 80 and 210 km, and thus the spacecraft has served as a random science experiment – a near-perfect mirror for models of atmospheric escape and space drag.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
On Saturday, the Cosmos 482 spacecraft is about to crash.
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Father, I think it's the other way around.
Most of the time it would have been in the high part of the orbit (Kepler's second law) and not in the low part (as you wrote).
Sorry. I hope I fixed everything.
Listen – Hebrew is a difficult language.
Please go through what is being advertised.
Is there confirmation that there has already been a reentry?
It's now 12:00 noon, and I've supposedly seen reports that radars in Germany did not detect the spacecraft at the expected time, and it is estimated that the spacecraft has already fallen to Earth.
On the other hand, it seems that there are websites that still publish altitude data.