Soviet-era Venus probe plunges back to Earth after 53 years (www.dw.com)
from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 11 May 10:19
https://lemmy.world/post/29475272

A probe launched from the Soviet Union more than five decades ago has plummeted back to Earth, splashing down in the Indian Ocean. Kosmos 482 had been bound for Venus but never reached its destination.

Russian space agency Roscosmos on Saturday said a Soviet space probe that took off in March 1972 to explore the planet Venus crashed into the Indian Ocean.

Planetary lander Kosmos 482 never made it to Earth’s sister planet because it was dragged off course after a malfunction in its launch vehicle’s upper stage.

#world

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Kbobabob@lemmy.world on 11 May 11:04 next collapse

Alternate headline: 50 year old Russian space junk falls back to earth.

Reverendender@sh.itjust.works on 11 May 13:33 next collapse

Hey friend. Calling the Venera probes “junk” is selling them short. The Soviet Venus program pulled off some genuinely insane feats between the ’60s and early ’80s—basically the punch-card era of spaceflight.

  • Venera 7 was the first spacecraft to land on another planet and send data back (1970).
  • Venera 9 delivered the first photo taken from the surface of another planet (1975).
  • Venera 13 survived 450°C heat and 90 atmospheres of pressure in 1982, long enough to send back color photos, audio from the surface, and a full soil analysis. No other country—not even now—has matched that on Venus.

<img alt="" src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/3c9592ae-45ce-4575-9de1-33f6c614b1e3.jpeg">

All of this was done with computers running at 100–200 kHz and 8 KB of memory. For comparison, modern smartphones have 3–6 GB of RAM, multi-core CPUs clocking in at 2.5+ GHz, and literally millions of times the processing power. Your phone wouldn’t last five seconds on Venus. Venera 13 lasted 127 minutes.

Despite the harshest planetary environment we’ve ever targeted—900°F surface temps, atmospheric pressure like 3,000 feet underwater, and clouds of sulfuric fucking acid—the Venera program still racked up a list of milestones:

Here’s how their success rate compares to other space programs:
Program Missions Successes Failures Success Rate Notes
Soviet Venera 28 15 13 ~54% First landings, first photos, audio, and soil data from Venus
NASA Venus (Mariner) 5 3 2 60% All flybys—no landings
NASA (modern planetary) Many ~75–85% Varies ~75–85% Achieved after decades of experience and tech refinement
SpaceX (Falcon era) 300+ ~98% Few ~98% Mostly low Earth orbit and ISS missions, not planetary landings

SpaceX has incredible reliability, but they’re launching commsats and resupply capsules—not trying to drop hardware onto a planet that eats spacecraft for breakfast. NASA has never returned data from the surface of Venus, not ever, despite multiple attempts. Mars is a far easier target in every possible way, and it still took decades to achieve consistent success.

Lest you think Venera’s 54% success rate was a sign of failure — it wasn’t — it was a sign of pushing the boundaries of what was possible. They were first. They were bold. And they made history with kilobyte-level hardware and pressure vessels tougher than your car’s engine block.

This wasn’t junk. It was triumph.

Visual and audio proof:

Rrrurboatlibad@lemm.ee on 11 May 13:47 next collapse

This was an awesome post. Thank you

catloaf@lemm.ee on 11 May 14:11 next collapse

A stage cut off too early and it failed to leave orbit. It has been derelict since 1972. It was junk.

nuko147@lemm.ee on 11 May 14:32 collapse

Probe that could go easily in a Museum = Junk

These guys…

Reverendender@sh.itjust.works on 11 May 14:43 next collapse

It must be very depressing to view the world with the amount of negativity that these cats do.

catloaf@lemm.ee on 11 May 16:08 collapse

Sure, if you can get it down, let alone in one piece. It’s unreachable and uncontrollable. It’s a hazard to space navigation.

Well, it was, until it deorbited, anyway. Now it’s returned to the dust it was made from. (I doubt any parts made it down intact.)

Deme@sopuli.xyz on 11 May 16:26 collapse

The lander most probably made it down in one piece. It was designed to survive an atmospheric entry on Venus and from interplanetary speeds. It almost certainly survived a reentry into Earth from a low orbit. That being said, it probably shattered in the splashdown due to the parachute not deploying.

catloaf@lemm.ee on 11 May 17:00 collapse

From wikipedia:

The landing module, which weighed around 495 kilograms (1,091 lb), may have reached the surface of Earth largely intact. Correctly oriented, it was designed to withstand 300 g of acceleration and 100 atmospheres of pressure entering the atmosphere of Venus. However, the age of the craft and the shallow angle of reentry likely reduced survivability; tumbling or misorientation may have resulted in sections of the craft burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. The final impact velocity was estimated to be 65–70 metres per second (230–250 km/h; 150–160 mph).

So maybe the main body of the landing module made it down, but it’s extremely unlikely that it would have maintained the correct orientation. And any part that didn’t burn up was surely obliterated in the impact.

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world on 11 May 15:39 collapse

This guy space nerds.

FelixCress@lemmy.world on 11 May 13:56 collapse

That would be a headline about Russian army in Ukraine.

SGGeorwell@lemmy.world on 11 May 11:30 next collapse

It’s got to be devastating to scientists to watch your baby get flung into obscurity.

mkwt@lemmy.world on 11 May 12:17 collapse

In NASA’s lessons learned database, there’s one where the probe made out all the way to its destination, but the pictures came back all black. Because they forgot to take off the lens cap.

IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz on 11 May 13:51 collapse

There’s also Mars Climate Orbiter which crashed to the planet since NASA used SI-units and Lockheed Martin (who manufactured the thing) used imperial units.

notoftenthat@sh.itjust.works on 11 May 23:55 collapse

Ariane 5 met its demise by a known software deficit.

Overflow a 16-bit signed integer on the INS, and upside-down you go.

JayleneSlide@lemmy.world on 11 May 14:16 next collapse

Too bad we don’t yet have Steve Austin to save our butts from this. Reference for the young’uns: bionic.fandom.com/wiki/Death_Probe

homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world on 11 May 15:36 next collapse

Experts previously warned that due to its sturdy construction — it was designed to survive Venus’s harsh atmosphere — the probe could reach Earth’s surface largely intact.

However, Roscosmos said, “Kosmos 482 no longer exists.”

Doubt

While Venus is about the same size as Earth, it is sometimes referred to as an “evil twin.”

The fuck? I have never heard it referred to as an ‘evil twin’. It’s fucking Venus. Goddess of beauty? Anyone?

Stamau123@lemmy.world on 11 May 16:14 next collapse

I’ve heard evil twin before

witchybitchy@lemm.ee on 11 May 16:53 collapse

same

Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world on 12 May 00:35 next collapse

I’ve heard it called Earth’s twin, but never specifically an evil twin.

Firoaren@sh.itjust.works on 12 May 01:10 collapse

Actually, yes, for good reason god dammit. Venus is terrifying. The acid-rain, steel-crushing atmosphere, volcanic climate, weird fuckin’ backwards-spin of it’s rotation? Shit ain’t natural, each day I wake up expecting scientists to find the mustache it’s been twirling

derry@midwest.social on 11 May 16:06 next collapse

After hearing about the state of the world it decided to go back into orbit

CaliforniaSober@lemmy.ca on 12 May 01:44 collapse

700C… As good as anywhere else.

HubertManne@piefed.social on 11 May 16:57 next collapse

Im a little older than this thing was in space.

gradual@lemmings.world on 11 May 22:18 collapse

Fug, OP’s thumbnail makes me really want an oreo milkshake.

Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world on 12 May 00:34 collapse

I’m relieved I’m not the only one that saw a drink. I was wondering what a nearly-overflowing mug of iced coffee had to do with space.