Off The Record
1972 Soviet Spacecraft Falling Back To Earth Like A Meteor — Scientists Unsure Where It Will Land
A piece of Soviet spacecraft is hurtling back to Earth after orbiting our globe for more than 50 years, and no one knows where it might fall.
Space objects that are on our way in 2025 have been a bit of a suspense.
NASA scientists identified a large space rock earlier this year that has a 1-in-83 chance of hitting Earth in 2032.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield, meanwhile, issued a warning that another asteroid would pass “quite close to Earth” in 2028 and have a “one in 45 chance” of striking the planet.
We might soon be seeing a half-ton Soviet spacecraft that was built to withstand landing on Venus. According to reports, the 1972-launched spacecraft never left Earth’s orbit, and its remnants continued to orbit the globe for more than 50 years.
Dr. Marco Langbroek, a space lecturer and tracker, stated in a blog article that was later published on X that the spacecraft will return to Earth in as little as “two weeks from now” and could “crash down hard” like a meteorite.
“And from our current modelling, the reentry should happen near 10 May, give or take a few days,” the space object tracker said. “Over the past few months, the model consistently points to reentry within a few days of 9-10 May 2025.”
The space probe has a very slim risk of burning up during reentry, said Dr. Langbroek of the Delft University of Technology.
“As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible it will survive reentry through the Earth atmosphere intact, and impact intact,” he explained. Although the spacecraft has a parachute, there’s a significant likelihood that it will no longer function.
“If it survives reentry, it will come down hard,” Dr. Langbroek told Popular Science.
The probe is roughly a meter wide and weighs just under 500kg. It could reenter the atmosphere and hit the Earth at a speed of about 250kmph, the lecturer said, adding, “The risks involved are not particularly high, but not zero.”
More worryingly, pinpointing the exact time and location is unclear. “With an orbital inclination of 51.7 degrees, the reentry can occur anywhere between latitude 52 N and 52 S,” Dr. Langbroek described. This could be anywhere as far north as the UK and as far south as New Zealand.
To learn more about the space probe’s landing location, trackers are still monitoring it in the interim.
“The uncertainty in the reentry date will decrease once we get closer to the actual reentry, but even on the day, uncertainties will remain large,” Dr. Langbroek continued.
Currently, our sole recourse is to maintain optimism.
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