The 53-year-old Soviet spaceship, initially bound for Venus, fell into the sea after entering Earth on 10 May. Russia’s space agency Roscosmos confirmed.
The uncontrolled reentry occurred at 2:24 am ET (0624 GMT or 9:24 am Moscow time), 560 km west of Middle Andaman Island in the Indian Ocean. There is no video of the fall of this nearly 500kg piece of technology (and as you might imagine, the cover image is an artist’s reconstruction), but the tracking evidence suggests that the object landed in the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta, Indonesia for another report.
The spaceship, initially bound for Venus, fell harmlessly into the sea after some reports claimed that it might fall on land.
“The Kosmos-482 spacecraft, launched in 1972, ceased to exist, deorbiting and falling into the Indian Ocean. The descent of the spacecraft was monitored by the Automated Warning System for Hazardous Situations in Near-Earth Space,” as reported Roscosmos.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) space debris office also confirmed that Kosmos 482 had re-entered the atmosphere after it failed to appear over a German radar station.
Launched in 1972, Kosmos 482, weighing just under 500 kg, malfunctioned on its way to Venus. An issue with a timer resulted in an early engine shutdown, trapping the Soviet spacecraft in Earth’s orbit for over half a century.
