The EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) Operations Centres have actively monitored the uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere of the Cosmos-482 Descent Craft, a Soviet-era spacecraft launched in 1972 and intended to land on Venus. The EU SST network of contributing sensors closely followed the object, and narrowed down its re-entry window to 10 May in the morning.
Latest update: 2025-05-13 13:00 UTC+2
Based on EU SST analysis and information and no-shows during passes, EU SST confirms that object Cosmos-482 Descent Craft decayed within the last estimated re-entry window (2025-05-10 06:04 UTC ±20 minutes).
Due to its inclination of approximately 51.95 degrees, the object could re-enter within a latitude band of ±52 degrees, covering a vast area of the Earth’s surface. Most of this area is ocean or uninhabited land, so the statistical probability of an impact on the ground in populated areas was low. As the re-entry approached, the predictions became more accurate, but uncertainties remained due to the object’s uncontrolled nature.
EU SST contributing sensor TIRA captured this Ku-Band image of Cosmos-482 in the days prior to its re-entry.
Image credit: Fraunhofer FHR, financed by GSSAC / German Armed Forces
The EU SST contributing sensors played a crucial role in observing the object and providing data for analysis. The EU SST Operations Centres used this data to produce the best possible estimation for the expected re-entry location and time.
Map of radars contributing to the event as of 13 May 2025
A ground track for the re-entry window was continuously updated, and the window was refined as more data became available. The below figure shows the ground track for the last estimated re-entry window 2025-05-10 06:04:48 UTC ±20 minutes. Radar TIRA last observed the object on 10/05/2025 at 06:04 UTC; the last predicted window follows a commonly used approach for full uncertainties prediction.
Map of the whole ground track.
Yellow lines: ground track before the centre of the re-entry window. Green lines: ground track after the centre of the re-entry window. Red: overflights inside European countries and overseas territories.
Note: the possible re-entry locations lied anywhere along the yellow and green lines. The re-entry point was considered to be at an altitude of 80 km.
The Cosmos-482 Descent Craft was a remarkable object deserving careful monitoring, with a titanium shell designed to withstand the extreme accelerations, heat and pressure of a Venus re-entry. Weighing approximately 500 kilograms and measuring 1 metre in diameter, it most likely survived and reached the ground almost intact.
The EU SST Operations Centres will continue to provide the latest information on this event, and this article will be updated accordingly.