A SOVIET-era spacecraft plunged down to Earth more than half a century after its failed launch to Venus.
The space vessel hurtled back down in an “uncontrolled reentry”, the European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking confirmed.
Anatoly Zak/RussianSpaceWeb.comA failed Soviet spacecraft launched in 1972 has arrived back at Earth[/caption] SWNSThe spacecraft hurtled ‘uncontrolled’ into Earth’s atmosphere[/caption]The European Space Agency space debris office agreed that the spacecraft had reentered – after it failed to appear over a German radar station.
It’s not yet clear where the speeding spaceship crash landed – or how much of it survived the fiery descent.
Experts said ahead of time that the wreckage could arrive whole, given it was built to withstand a landing on Venus – the solar system’s hottest planet.
The hunk of space junk, called Kosmos 482 Descent Craft, was first launched in 1972 with the intention of it touching down on Earth’s neighbouring planet.
But this mission failed – and the probe has been stuck in low Earth orbit ever since.
Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in space situational awareness at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands predicted the lander’s return in a blog post.
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