It’s not unusual for redundant satellites, rocket stages, or other spacecraft to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere. Usually they pass unnoticed or generate a spectacular light show, and very rarely a few pieces make it to the surface of the planet. Coming up though is something entirely different, a re-entry of a redundant craft in which the object in question might make it to the ground intact. To find out more about the story we have to travel back to the early 1970s, and Kosmos-482. It was a failed Soviet Venera mission, and since its lander was heavily over-engineered to survive entry into the Venusian atmosphere there’s a fascinating prospect that it might survive Earth re-entry.
At the time of writing the re-entry is expected to happen on the 10th of May, but as yet due to its shallow re-entry angle it is difficult to predict where it might land. It is thought to be about a metre across and to weigh just under 500 kilograms, and its speed upon landing is projected to be between 60 and 80 metres per second. Should it hit land rather than water then, its remains are thought to present an immediate hazard only in its direct path.
Were it to be recovered it would be a fascinating artifact of the Space Race, and once the inevitable question of its ownership was resolved — do marine salvage laws apply in space? –we’d expect it to become a world class museum exhibit. If that happens, we look forward to bringing you our report if possible.
This craft isn’t the only surviving relic of the Space Race out there, though it may be the only one we have a chance of seeing up-close. Some of the craft from that era are even still alive.
Header: Moini, CC0.
LOL I look forward to reading it if possible.
I wonder if there’s even the slightest chance someone could trick it into deploying its parachutes… Might be a project for a (very) ambitious hacker.
Anybody happen to know a single thing about Soviet systems of that era?
The batteries are long, long, long dead. Events like parachute deploy would have been controlled by timers and accelerometers anyway.
Yeah I figure the batteries are definitely gonezo. I wasn’t sure what kind of peripheral hardware might exist, such as if it has solar connected to the lander before it separates from the orbiter.. sure would be nice if the Soviets used something mechanical and simple to deploy the chutes through air pressure, but then the pressure for the design probably won’t be something you’re likely to find inside Earth’s atmosphere…
Curious if anyone has details on what the power or parachute systems were from that side of the wall in that era, for curiosity’s sake as much as anything else.
For the sister probe Venera 7, the parachute deployed like this:
“After aerodynamic braking, the top hatch was blown and the parachute system was deployed, exposing the antenna and commencing transmissions at 4:59:28. The hatch was designed to be released at 700 mb pressure, planned to be about 60 km altitude, although 700 mb is now known to correspond to about 52.5 km.”
Source: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=1970-060D
Interesting. Blowing the cover is a barometric trigger, while the reefing cords use temperature. I wonder if the barometric trigger is fully mechanical. In Earth’s atmosphere, 700 millibar would translate to an altitude of around 2-3km or roughly 10,000 feet. But it’s doubtful that anywhere on Earth will reach the 200 Celsius required to melt the reefing cords and fully open the parachutes. But 1.8 meter parachutes is better than nothing.
I’m also assuming the probe is still connected to the 3MV bus module and possibly some other upper stages of the original launch vehicle… I don’t know how to confirm any of that.
Assuming it disconnects from the bus somehow during re-entry, it’s vaguely possible that the parachutes may function if all of the triggering mechanisms are robust and purely mechanical. This will be interesting to watch.
Oops, wrong sister, it was Venera 8. But same system:
“The parachute system was identical to Venera 7, although stronger materials were used to prevent the tearing that occurred on the earlier mission. It comprised a reefed parachute (1.8 square meters when reefed, 2.5 square meters fully open) with a reefing cord was made of a material (glass nitron) that would melt at 200 degrees C (roughly 32 km altitude) and allow the parachute to open fully.”
The probe wasn’t expected to live long after landing on Venus. No solar panels, no nuclear battery or anything of the sort. It’s just a regular battery for a few hours of operation before the heat and atmospheric pressure destroyed the probe.
50+ years in the space, the battery would have died long ago.
Yeah the probe, but it is probably still attached to the orbiter. It’s not in LEO by itself, as if it were just dropped into the Venusian atmosphere.
The spacecraft bus for this mission is identical to Venera-4, so it looks like this:
http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venera4d.jpg
So it does theoretically have solar. Is the solar power connected to the probe’s on-board battery? No idea. Did the bus even get to a point where it opened the panels? Possibly, but probably not. Whichever the case, I doubt that battery is in a healthy state if it has been cycling on solar charge since 1972. Healthy enough to fire of an explosive bolt or two? Or maybe the explosive bolts are activated by a mechanical thingamajig, like a barometer attached to a spring-loaded plunger? Hmmmm…
Part of the transfer stage rocket may also be connected. Apparently some bits of the upper stages fell on New Zealand shortly after the launch, recovered by a farmer. The transfer stage prematurely shut down, stranding some portion of the spacecraft in LEO until next week.
This guy seem to know quite a bit about the venera missions amd probes – and it makes a fascinating read:
http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm
Very nice, thank you. Sounds like the mechanisms are primarily mechanical, not computerized or electrical, and as durable and fool-proof as cold war Soviets could make them. Promising! I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.
I found info elsewhere that Venera 7 used the same bus/orbiter as Venera 4, so we’re potentially looking at this guy (scroll down to third photo) with a slightly different lander:
http://mentallandscape.com/V_Lavochkin1.htm
“do marine salvage laws apply in space?” “Marine” implies “in the ocean”. The ocean is in space. I am in space. The author of this article is in space. Everyone I know of is in space. Do murder laws apply in space?
Quick transition from talking about a crash on land to marine salvage. In my day we edited before going out all night to the vicars and tarts club.
Except….. maritime law is more generally regarded as ‘outside any country’s legal space’ law. Technically, I think most of outer space is considered to be under maritime law, though there’s some specific treatys and such that also apply
Except….. maritime law applies within the 3, 12, 200 or whatever miles limit, so no, not “generally regarded as ‘outside any country’s legal space’ law”.
From the Kosmos-482 wiki: “Space law required that the space junk be returned to its national owner, but the Soviets denied knowledge or ownership of the satellite.” This was referring to a couple objects from the launch that re-entered immediately. I would assume this would still apply to objects that re-enter years later.
Parts of the lower stages fell in New Zealand a little while after the launch in the 1970s. They tried to give the bits back to the Soviets, but the Soviets denied any knowledge of a launch (of course) so it fell under the international “finders keepers” treaty, and was given back to some farmer. He let some metallurgists analyze them.
Did the comment complaining that this isn’t really a Venusian spacecraft get deleted?
It wasn’t complaining. It was clarification based on the source literature that the spacecraft never came from Venus, but has been stuck in earth orbit all this time.
The comment also had the observation that the probe will probably survive reentry from earth orbit velocities better than if it had actually come in with interplanetary velocities from Venus. So, it will probably survive to hit the surface, instead of turning itself into plasma.
But, yes, that comment is hidden. Probably due to the followup comments with poor word choices.
It would be pretty strange if it somehow wandered back to Earth from Venus orbit unpowered. I would be asking a lot more questions if that were the case. Not something likely to happen in less than several million years of chance orbital resonances
Yes, it would be strange to find it back in Earth’s neighborhood, if it ever executed an orbit insertion burn at Venus. But if it did make the trip, then missed Venus or didn’t execute a burn there, it would (modulo perturbations) still be approximately on the Venus-Earth Hohmann ellipse, and find itself near Earth orbit every ten months or so, with a closest approach to Earth every 5 years or so.
Sure, it wouldn’t bounce instead.
From this image of the terrestrial testing of a similar pressure vessel, it appears to embed itself in the ground. Following that, it looks like a suspicious garden planter.
http://mentallandscape.com/V_Venera7c.jpg
“Were it to be recovered it would be a fascinating artifact of the Space Race, and once the inevitable question of its ownership was resolved — do marine salvage laws apply in space?”
Nope. if commercial, your stuff still belongs to you, unless legally transferred to another entity. And your government takes the hit for any damages, even if it wasn’t their hardware.
That’s why the FAA issues launch and/or re-entry licenses.
Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty.