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After 53 years, a failed Soviet Venus spacecraft is crashing back to Earth
- xattt 2y ago> 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. I did not consider this outcome at all, but this makes sense. I am hoping the descent mechanism activates and the spacecraft lands intact.
- accrual 2y agoThat would be pretty cool indeed. My only concern is that the craft probably doesn't have any attitude control, so it may enter backwards or tumbling, which may limit the effectiveness of the heatshield on the probe. Even so, surely large pieces of it will make it back home intact.
- voidUpdate 2y agoIf it is the same as other venera probes, it is designed so that aerodynamic forces will stabilise it into a heatshield-forward attitude
- azernik 2y agoThe descent mechanism would be built for the much denser Venusian atmosphere. On Earth, it may not slow the thing down enough.
- orbital-decay 2y agoIt will not, of course - anything that's inside is long dead, not designed for Earth atmosphere, and it had to be programmed to trigger in the first place. In fact, the capsule could also burn up on reentry. Sure, it's a Venera-8 double designed to enter Venus' atmosphere at 11.6km/s... but it has extra mass on it (the upper stage never separated so it should look like [1]) and the capsule's CoG doesn't take all that stuff into account, which might cause it to tumble, reenter backwards, or damage it. On the other hand, it's reentering from a really low-energy orbit so it could survive the reentry - but not the impact in case it lands on the ground. [1] https://epizodyspace.ru/01/2u/solnthe/ams/v-8/v-8.html https://epizodyspace.ru/01/2u/solnthe/ams/v-8/v-8.html
- renhanxue 2y agoMarco Langbroek, who did the reentry forecast that the linked article is based on, convincingly argues[0] that the bus did separate and reenter separately (in 1981) and what remains in orbit is just the lander. There are several independent pieces of evidence that are consistent with this; the orbital decay pattern, the radar cross section and optical telescope observations all point to only the lander itself remaining. See also his blog[1] for an up-to-date reentry forecast. [0]: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4384/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4384/1 [1]: https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/04/kosmos-842-descent-craft-reentry.html https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/04/kosmos-842-descent-...
- wolrah 2y ago> I am hoping the descent mechanism activates and the spacecraft lands intact. I think it's a safe bet that any descent mechanism designed for the thick atmosphere of Venus is not going to function the same way on Earth.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sylens 2y agoIs there somewhere I can read about why the Trans Venus injection burn failed?
- rich_sasha 2y ago[flagged]
- bragr 2y agoAccording to Wikipedia, the stage timer was set incorrectly so the injection burn cut out early.
- js2 2y ago> 1972 March 31 - . 04:02 GMT - . Launch Site: Baikonur. Launch Complex: Baikonur LC31. LV Family: R-7. Launch Vehicle: Molniya 8K78M. FAILURE: The escape stage Block L's engine cut off 125 seconds after ignition due to timer failure.. Failed Stage: U. http://www.astronautix.com/v/venera.html http://www.astronautix.com/v/venera.html via https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4384/1 https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4384/1 via Wikipedia article on the probe.
- SoftTalker 2y agoHope it's not full of plutonium or other nasty stuff.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- m4rtink 2y agoThat would be more likely for outer system probes, where even simple radio isotope heaters could be very useful. For Venus it is unlikely to need anything like that, as the expected flight duration was much shorter (quite important for not very durable Soviet electronics) and main issue would be actually cooling.
- marcusb 2y agoThe Soviet Venera program was really fascinating. It is quite impressive that they managed to build landers that survived even a short period on the surface of Venus, let alone return photographs. https://www.astronomy.com/science/the-venera-program-interplanetary-probes-from-behind-the-iron-curtain/ https://www.astronomy.com/science/the-venera-program-interpl... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera
- Sylleib 2y agoAnother cool site with lots of details and pics: http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI read about it years ago, I never knew they actually landed on Venus. That said, I wonder whether with advances in material science and the likes they could build something that lasts longer.
- chasil 2y agoYou will want to see these photos. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43638520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43638520
- Swizec 2y ago> The Soviet Venera program was really fascinating Reading my uncle’s old tech magazines and sci-fi from the 70’s was fascinating. Eastern European sci fi was all about colonizing Venus and the Venera landers. The way kids in USA are obsessed with Mars, kids in my part of Europe used to be obsessed with Venus before the influx of Western media. Getting to grow up on the cusp of that vibe shift was cool.
- glimshe 2y agoCool! What tech magazines are you talking about?
- arprocter 2y agoLive map here: https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=6073 https://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=6073
- harywilke 2y agoThat's really cool. Do you think this will be visible for those near the entry path?
- arprocter 2y agoI defer to the much smarter folks on this site, but my layman's assumption would be if it comes down in the dark it'll look like a shooting star The altitude seems to be falling pretty quickly at the moment, although presumably the atmosphere will slow it down
- dumdedum123 2y ago[dead]
- AccordionGuy 2y agoDamn it, I was going to post the same thing!
- Crontab 2y agoI am old enough to remember watching those episodes when they debuted.
- tocs3 2y agoWould I get to keep it if it lands in my yard?
- Oneword 2y ago[flagged]
- bobmcnamara 2y agoProbably not, but maybe. Some of it came down in New Zealand in 1972, the Soviets didn't own up to it, so the farmer kept it.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- ojciecczas 2y agoI hope it crashes into Moscow.
- Molitor5901 2y agoThis reminded me of space junk and what the heck are we going to do with it?? There's not enough money behind cleaning it up to make it even feasible. There are some interesting magnetic ideas, but overall it seems like the concept of space junk is just here to stay.
- trympet 2y agoI’m not much of a YouTuber shill, however, I feel this crowd would enjoy Scott Manley’s video [1] on the subject [1] - https://youtu.be/vGQgmnQ1FtA?si=sylxAkAKj-kT5fUq https://youtu.be/vGQgmnQ1FtA?si=sylxAkAKj-kT5fUq
- dhc02 2y agoI like to imagine as if we threw something into the air so hard that it went up for 26 years, then came back down for 26 years.
- 1970-01-01 2y agoThat's exactly what happened, except it went around the world a million times too.
- Oneword 1y agoIt may have been engineered to withstand high heat but.. is this thing going to be controlled from the ground for heat shield positioning? Highly unlikely. This thing will tumble and fly into a million pieces. Perhaps parts will survive entry but its not going to be a slam dunk. Or maybe it will. The Earth is 2/3's water after all.