Archive for May, 2025
Author: 
May 10th, 2025
Soviet Venera 8 landing capsule. Venera 8 was one of a pair of Venus atmospheric lander probes designed for the spring 1972 launch window. The other mission, Cosmos 482, failed to leave Earth orbit.
Image credit: NASA/NSSDCA
The news is down and out…Kosmos 482 is back on Earth!
In a communiqué from Russia’s Roscosmos:
The Kosmos-482 spacecraft deorbited and fell into the ocean.
The Kosmos-482 spacecraft, launched in 1972, ceased to exist, deorbiting and falling into the Indian Ocean.
The descent of the spacecraft was monitored by the Automated Warning System for Hazardous Situations in Near-Earth Space.
According to calculations by specialists from TsNIIMash (part of Roscosmos), the spacecraft entered the dense layers of the atmosphere at 9:24 Moscow time, 560 km west of Middle Andaman Island, and fell into the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta.
The spacecraft was launched in the spring of 1972 to study Venus, but due to a malfunction of the booster block, it remained in a high elliptical orbit of the Earth, gradually approaching the planet.
Venera 8 was one of a pair of Venus atmospheric lander probes designed for the spring 1972 launch window. The other mission, Cosmos 482, failed to leave Earth orbit.
Image credit: Hall of Venus/NPO Lavochkin
All over the map
Meanwhile, satellite tracker Marco Langbroek of the Netherlands, said the Roscosmos posting is “reasonably in line” with a reentry model he and his colleague at TU Delft uses.
However, he questions whether any statement coming from Russia these days can be regarded as reliable. “Plus, this will probably also be some model result based on an earlier detection.”
The reentry time and location the Russians mention does not come with any indication of an uncertainty interval, Langbroek tells Inside Outer Space.
Model results
“We do not know whether is is accurate to 10 minutes, to half an hour, or to a full hour. Therefore it is completely unclear whether this position and time is more authoritative (as it seems to be taken, without any real valid reason) than the other reentry model results. Because in all likelihood this is but just another reentry model result,” Langbroek observes.
Furthermore, the last Time of Impact Prediction (TIP) by the Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC), the Space Delta 5 group based at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, “cannot be correct,” Langbroek states. They issued a 5:32 plus or minus 12 minute UTC TIP.
That’s questionable, Langbroek notes, as the European Space Agency reported a positive radar detection of the object from Germany at 6:04 UTC (and a “no-show” at 7:32 UTC), “so reentry must have been between 6:04 – 7:32 UTC and cannot have been before 6:04 UTC.”
Image credit: CNEOS
Reentry fireball
Langbroek adds that he’s still hoping for a post-reentry TIP with a 1-min plus/minus to appear. That information may be based on classified military spacecraft that pick up the fireball signature as objects pierce through the Earth’s atmosphere, such as bolides. This military intelligence data is sanitized and shared with civilians.
That data is posted on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) website.
Additionally, Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instruments on U.S. GOES weather satellites can detect fireballs and bolides.
The Geostationary Lightning Mapper is a single-channel, near-infrared optical transient detector that can detect the momentary changes in an optical scene, indicating the presence of lightning.
Image credit: NOAA
Convergence coming?
In a new posting by The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS) their predicted reentry time is May 10 at 06:29 UTC ± 2 hours.
Image credit: CORDS
Another popular satellite tracking website, SATFLARE, notes the object has decayed and offers a plot map, with a yellow track showing the re-enter window.
No shows
Image credit: SATFLARE
The European Union’s Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) Operations Centers carried out analysis, information gathering and “no-shows” during passes of the errant spacecraft gear.
Doing that work, EU SST confirmed that object Cosmos 482’s Descent Craft decayed within the last estimated re-entry window (2025-05-10 06:04 UTC ±20 minutes).
Yellow lines: ground track before the center of the reentry window. Green lines: ground track after the center of the re-entry window. Red: over-flights of the space hardware inside European countries and overseas territories. The possible re-entry locations lied anywhere along the yellow and green lines.
(Image credit: EU SST)
All in all, stay tuned for, one hopes, a convergence of tracking data to pinpoint when and where the Cosmos 482 Venus decent lander fell to Earth.
Will it float? – apologies to David Letterman
As if to “muddy the waters,” Russian space historian Pavel Shubin is floating the idea that Kosmos 482’s Venus landing hardware could be found bobbing in ocean waters.
Water landing? Image credit: Pavel Shubin
Shubin placed the last orbit of the station on a sea traffic map, arrows noting where it entered and where it could have flown.
Using Goggle translation from Russian, Shubin’s posting reads: “The capsule has no aerodynamic quality, so it should land along the route. Maybe someone will find it. The question is in the buoyancy of the station. It turns out to be at the limit, but it still looks like it should float in sea water. If it sinks, there is no chance of finding it. Although it can withstand a kilometer of water,” Shubin writes, in the event the object sinks out of sight.
Posted in 
The Red Planet as seen by Europe’s Mars Express.
Image credit: ESA/D. O’Donnell – CC BY-SA IGO
For over four years, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has been on the prowl within Jezero Crater. Since its touchdown in February 2021, the car-sized robot has been dutifully gathering rock samples across the exploratory landscape. Some of those sealed specimens may well contain signs of past life on the dusty, foreboding Red Planet.
NASA in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) have been steadfast in plotting out plans to send spacecraft to Mars and haul those Perseverance-plucked collectibles to Earth for close-up inspection in state-of-the-art facilities.
Image credit: NASA
But along with a 24.3% reduction to NASA’s top-line funding and slashing the space agency’s science budget by 47%, President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 proposed budget blueprint issued on May 2 by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has also taken the life out of the Mars Sample Return (MSR) venture.
This illustration shows an early concept for multiple robots that would team up to ferry to Earth samples collected from the Mars surface by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In a budgetary bombshell of a move, the NASA program has been cross-haired and cancelled, portrayed in the document as “grossly over budget and whose goals would be achieved by human missions to Mars.”
For details, go to my new Scientific American story – “NASA Spent Billions to Bring Rocks Back from Mars. Trump Wants to Leave Them There – After billions of dollars in spending and decades of planning, NASA may be forced to abandon precious samples of air, rock and soil on the Martian surface. Experts are furious” – go to:
Soviet Venera 8 landing capsule. Venera 8 was one of a pair of Venus atmospheric lander probes designed for the spring 1972 launch window. The other mission, Cosmos 482, failed to leave Earth orbit.
Image credit: NASA/NSSDCA
The fall to Earth of that old Soviet Kosmos 482 hardware is now forecast for a predicted reentry time of May 10 at 05:54 UTC ± 9 hours.
That’s the word from The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS).
Yellow Icon – location of object at midpoint of reentry window
Blue Line – ground track uncertainty prior to middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)
Yellow Line – ground track uncertainty after middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)
Pink Icon (if applicable) – vicinity of eyewitness sighting or recovered debris
Note: Possible reentry locations lie anywhere along the blue and yellow ground track. Areas not under the line are not exposed to the debris.
Image credit: CORDS
This incoming hardware is the lander module from a 1972 failed Soviet Union Venera mission to Venus.
When and where?
What’s set for taking the plunge to Earth is a 1,091 pound (495 kilograms), egg-shaped Venus lander from the stranded main spacecraft back in 1972.
Since it was designed to survive a dive into the murky atmosphere of Venus, the landing capsule is expected to survive and impact the Earth’s surface.
The leftover Venera descent lander has an orbital inclination of 51.95 degrees, so the reentry can occur anywhere between latitude 52 N and 52 S. But due to solar activity that influences the thickening of Earth’s atmosphere, exactly when and where the hardware augers in is unknown.
Ralf Vandebergh of the Netherlands has been collecting imagery of the hardware over the years. He recently provided to Inside Outer Space comparative imagery taken of the soon-doomed gear.
Image credit: Ralf Vandebergh
Vandebergh’s imagery shows max resolution version of Cosmos 482 compared to Cosmos 44 rocket from a 1964 launch. “The structure in Cosmos 482 is unlike anything I have seen in 15 years of satellite imaging,” he tells Inside Outer Space.
Reentry science experiment
Meanwhile, also keeping an eye on the upcoming reentry is the European Space Agency (ESA).
The Venus lander was made to withstand the extremely harsh conditions of Venus’ hostile atmosphere, ESA notes, and is designed to take 300 G’s of acceleration and 100 atmospheres of pressure.
“As a result, it might survive its reentry into the atmosphere,” adds ESA.
In addition, the special, smooth aerodynamical shape of the spacecraft, ESA explains, “allows it to function as a measure of the density in very low Earth orbit. Every time the elliptical orbit passes through the perigee, it loses apogee height. The atmospheric drag on the object can be inferred from the altitude difference right until reentry. The design of most spacecraft is too complicated to make accurate measurements, but the Venera descent craft’s nearly spherical shape does allow it. This turns its reentry into an ‘accidental’ reentry science experiment,” ESA concludes.
Venera 8 artwork shows the landing capsule on the cloud-veiled world on July 22, 1972.
Image Credit: NPO Lavochkin
Lights-on or off for the ice-hound?
Image credit: NASA
NASA has been investigating how to get the VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover) to the Moon after the project was canceled in July 2024.
Following an evaluation of partnership proposals to land the water-seeking robot on the lunar surface, NASA announced Wednesday that it is now opting to explore “alternative approaches” to plop that machinery on the Moon.
Being abandoned is the Lunar Volatiles Science Partnership Announcement for Partnership Proposals solicitation, which sought opportunities to send VIPER to the Moon at no cost to the government.
A close-up view of the areas that were to be explored by VIPER, showing a nominal traverse route and highlighting permanently shadowed regions that may contain water ice and other volatiles.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Ernie Wright
Additional methods
Now NASA wants to explore additional methods to send VIPER to Moon.
In a NASA statement, “the agency will announce a new strategy for VIPER in the future.”
Back last year, NASA said it planned to disassemble and reuse VIPER’s instruments and components for future Moon missions.
Chamber testing
Prior to disassembly, NASA’s opened the door for expressions of interest from U.S. industry and international partners for use of the existing VIPER rover system at no cost to the government.
The VIPER rover heading into the Thermal Vacuum (TVAC) Chamber for testing.
Image credit: Daniel Andrews/LinkedIn
Also last year, Congressional lawmakers are took a budgetary hard-look at the situation, prodded in part, by a save VIPER letter-writing campaign involving thousands of shoot-for-the-Moon supporters.
VIPER completed last October thermal vacuum chamber testing.
At that point in time, NASA had put in $450 million into VIPER.
Image credit: Interlune
The visionary Interlune company, based in Seattle, Washington, announced today that the U.S. Department of Energy Isotope Program (DOE IP) has agreed to purchase three liters of helium-3 harvested from the Moon for delivery on Earth at approximately today’s commercial market price. The delivery date is no later than April 2029.
The agreement marks the first DOE Isotope Program purchase of a non-terrestrial natural resource.
Interlune will harvest the helium-3 from the lunar soil, or regolith, and return it to Earth for the DOE IP and other customers using the fully operational infrastructure of its pilot plant on the Moon’s surface.
Helium-3, a stable isotope of helium, is extremely scarce on Earth but is available in abundance on the Moon, explains Interlune.
Image credit: Interlune
Dilution refrigerators
Interlune also announced today its first commercial customer. Maybell Quantum, the quantum infrastructure company, has agreed to purchase thousands of liters of helium-3 for yearly delivery from 2029 to 2035. The helium-3 will be used in Maybell’s state-of-the-art dilution refrigerators, which cool quantum devices to near-absolute zero temperatures.
Harvesting system
The Interlune harvesting system includes novel technologies for excavating, sorting, extracting, and separating industrial quantities of helium-3 and other resources from lunar soil or regolith.
According to Interlune, the firm’s harvester is smaller, lighter, and requires less power than other industry concepts, making it less expensive to transport to the Moon and operate once it’s there.
Image credit: Interlune
In another announcement today, Interlune unveiled a full-scale prototype of an excavator for harvesting Helium-3 from the Moon. Working with industrial equipment manufacturer Vermeer Corporation, the hardware is designed to ingest 100 metric tons of Moon dirt, or regolith, per hour and return it to the surface in a continuous motion.
For more information about Interlune and its ambitions, go to my earlier SpaceNews story –Interlune plans to gather scarce lunar Helium-3 for quantum computing on Earth” — at:
Image credit: Mars Guy
That’s the topic of a new Mars Guy video episode. The White House released the president’s 2026 Discretionary Funding Request last Friday.
“In order to beat China back to the Moon, it forfeits the highest priority goal of planetary science by terminating the U.S. led Mars Sample Return mission.”
To view the video, go to: https://youtu.be/zkv_MNSxfNw?si=NlHHcfRLfDn5x4qw
Image credit: Mars Guy
Image credit: Tian et al. (2024)
Lucy poster depicts the spacecraft’s long-term voyage.
Image credit: SwRI
Asteroid experts are pondering the scientific output from the NASA Lucy spacecraft as it shot by its celestial prey – the main belt asteroid named Donaldjohanson.
Hal Levison, principal investigator of the Lucy mission, said the spacecraft flyby of Donaldjohanson yielded a host of “don’t know” factors about the object.
Panelists describe the Lucy mission on April 22 at a special media event held at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado.
Image credit: Barbara David
As for its shape, Levison said that Donaldjohanson and the other Lucy targets are providing hints about how planets formed.
Asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson is named after American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson who co-discovered the Lucy hominid fossil in northern Ethiopia in 1974.
For more details, go to my new Space.com story –“‘Right now, we are in what has to be a Golden Age of asteroid exploration.’ Scientists celebrate NASA’s latest space rock flyby” – at:
Venera 8 was one of a pair of Venus atmospheric lander probes designed for the spring 1972 launch window. The other mission, Cosmos 482, failed to leave Earth orbit.
Image credit: Hall of Venus/NPO Lavochkin
The fall to Earth of that old Soviet Kosmos 482 hardware is now forecast for May 10, plus/minus 1.1 days.
That’s the word from sharp-eyed satellite tracker Marco Langbroek in Leiden, the Netherlands.
“This object is the lander module from a 1972 failed Soviet Venera mission to Venus,” Langbroek posts on his SatTrackCam Leiden website. “Because of a failure of the upper stage of the rocket that launched it, it got stuck in a very elliptical orbit around Earth in 1972, instead of going to Venus.”
Image credit: Dominic Dirkx/Marco Langbroek
Hard impact
According to recently declassified Russian historic documents unearthed by Anatoly Zak, publisher of an informative website specializing in Russian space activities, Soviet flight control specialists purposely separated the 1,058 pound (480 kilogram) egg-shaped Venus lander from the stranded main spacecraft back in 1972.
“As this is a lander, which is in a semi-globular Titanium protective shell, a bit of a metal bucket,” notes Langbroek, fabricated to survive passage through the thick Venus atmosphere, “it is possible that it will survive reentry through the Earth atmosphere intact, and impact intact.”
Langbroek adds that it likely will be a hard impact.
Venera 8 artwork depicts lander on Venus surface – likely similar to Kosmos 482 hardware.
Image Credit: NPO Lavochkin
Parachute prognosis
“I doubt the parachute deployment system will still work after 53 years and with dead batteries. There are many uncertain factors in whether the lander will survive reentry though, including that this will be a long shallow reentry trajectory, and the age of the object,” Langbroek believes.
On that score, another satellite tracker, Ralf Vandebergh, also of the Netherlands, speculates that his imagery may show the descent lander’s parachute tangling in space. If so, it would be destroyed during the heated plunge to Earth.
Image credit: Ralf Vandebergh
When and where?
The precise reentry date and where the leftover descent craft hardware would fall to Earth are unknowns.
“With an orbital inclination of 51.95 degrees, the reentry can occur anywhere between latitude 52 N and 52 S,” Langbroek points out. However, to what degree solar activity will play in influencing the timing and whereabouts of the reentry is an uncertainty.
“Stronger solar activity will mean an earlier reentry, lower solar activity a later reentry,” Langbroek states.
Coming in over Europe?
Also keeping a watchful eye on the incoming leftover is The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies (CORDS). Their current predicted reentry time is May 10, 04:42 UTC ± 19 hours.
The CORDS prediction is that the reentry is to occur sometime this weekend, showing the object reentering over Europe at 12:42 a.m. US Eastern Time this Saturday.
Yellow Icon – location of object at midpoint of reentry window
Blue Line – ground track uncertainty prior to middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)
Yellow Line – ground track uncertainty after middle of the reentry window (ticks at 5-minute intervals)
Pink Icon (if applicable) – vicinity of eyewitness sighting or recovered debris
Note: Possible reentry locations lie anywhere along the blue and yellow ground track. Areas not under the line are not exposed to the debris.
Image credit: CORDS
“Because Cosmos 482 is defunct, we expect it to perform an uncontrolled reentry as Earth’s atmosphere finally causes its orbit to decay, versus landing deliberately in the ocean or in a remote area,” observes The Aerospace “Kickstage” posting.
Because the object was originally designed to land on Venus—a much harsher atmosphere and environment to survive than Earth’s—“it is possible Cosmos 482 could survive reentry to the extent that parts of it strike the surface rather than burn up entirely,” observes the “Kickstage” posting.
Risk is nonzero
As for the risk posed to people on the ground, “while the risk is nonzero, any one individual on Earth is far likelier to be struck by lightning than to be injured by Cosmos 482.”
How likely is it that the decent lander plops down in your yard?
“We definitely do not expect Cosmos 482 to land in your yard specifically. Given the nature of its orbit, most of the Earth is still in play for its reentry, and consequently it is far more likely to land in the ocean or an unpopulated area,” the posting adds.
Soviet Union’s Venera 8 museum display.
Image credit: NPO Lavochkin
Finders keepers?
On the other hand, if the object defies the odds and does land in your yard, please don’t touch it!
“It could potentially be hazardous, and it is best to notify your local authorities,” the posting notes.
As for taking the finders keepers approach, don’t get your hopes up.
“There is a United Nations treaty that governs found debris—the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. It states that countries keep ownership of objects they launch into space, even after those objects reenter and return to Earth. The country that launched the object in this case is Russia, which could request the return of any parts that survived reentry. It is also worth noting that the treaty says that the launching country is also internationally liable for damages,” the Kickstage item explains.
Soviet Venera 8 landing capsule. Venera 8 was one of a pair of Venus atmospheric lander probes designed for the spring 1972 launch window. The other mission (Cosmos 482 – 1972-023A) failed to leave Earth orbit.
Image credit: NASA/NSSDCA
Puzzling out budget ballistics: Image credit: Leonard David
Last week saw the release of President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2026 proposed budget blueprint. It is viewed as a budgetary bombshell, calling for a 24.3% reduction to NASA’s top-line funding and slashing the space agency’s science budget by 47%.
Reactions to the budget centers on it being reckless and destructive, one that undercuts American leadership in probing our solar system and the universe writ large.
Image credit: White House
Phasing out, retiring, cancelled
Among NASA projects cross-haired by the White House budget:
— Phasing out the government-backed Space Launch System (SLS) mega-booster, retired after an Artemis 3 “rebooting” of humans on the Moon
— Retiring the Orion crew capsule, and doing away with the Gateway lunar space station.
— Cancelling the NASA Mars Sample Return mission, labeled in the White House budget as “grossly over budget and whose goals would be achieved by human missions to Mars.”
More details can be viewed in my new Sky and Telescope story – “Are Proposed Science Cuts a Call-to-Arms? Or Armageddon? – Deep cuts to NASA, the National Science Foundation, and other science-funding institutions are causing grave concerns in the community” at:
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/are-proposed-science-cuts-a-call-to-arms-or-armageddon/
Moon to Mars?
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The just returned to Earth Shenzhou-19 crew arrived in Beijing by plane on Wednesday of last week and are now entering a period of medical quarantine and health evaluation.
Astronauts Cai Xuzhe, Song Lingdong and Wang Haoze landed on Wednesday at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said the crew is in good health after living in space for 183 days.
Landing spot change
The mission’s three crew members touched down safely at the Dongfeng landing site, a return that had been postponed by a day due to unfavorable weather conditions on the ground.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
That bad weather did move the planned landing spot for the taikonaut trio from the west zone to the eastern zone of the landing site – a change that meant recovery team members had to quickly scramble to the new location.
Samples back on Earth
The Shenzhou-19 mission generated over 102 samples of 13 types now back on Earth. Studies of samples are expected to produce scientific output in fundamental research, new materials, space radiation effects and hypomagnetic biological mechanisms.
For example, 22 types of experiment samples of space materials are in four categories that include tungsten high entropy alloy, high-strength steel, lunar soil reinforcement material, and gel composite lubricating material.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Twenty of the samples are from life science experiments, and include bone cells and osteoblasts, human bronchial epithelial cells, early embryos of humans and animals, protein samples and fruit flies. This marks the largest variety of biological samples returned to Earth since the Chinese space station began operating in late 2022.
The biologically sensitive samples were rushed to Beijing immediately after the spacecraft touched down at the Dongfeng landing site.
In-orbit exposure
According to China Central Television (CCTV), the Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that the studies of experiment samples will promote the production and application of key materials including those for the next-generation aero-engine turbine blades and nano-electronic components.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Additionally, some of the space material samples had undergone in-orbit exposure to help reveal the mechanisms that cause damage to the samples’ microstructures, their performance degradation, as well as functional failure in space.
CCTV adds that statistics show that over 70 percent of the malfunctions of spacecraft were directly or indirectly caused by the space environment.
Space radiation studies
Pei Weiwei is an associate researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Radiation Medicine and Protection of Soochow University. After a special handover ceremony was held where scientists received the samples brought back by the Shenzhou-19 space mission, Pei said:
“The carcinogenicity of space radiation has always been a focus of our research, and the epithelial cells of the lungs are the most susceptible to tumors. So we are studying the evolution of lung epithelial cells into tumor cells in space radiation and some of its mechanisms.”
Risk assessment system
Pei added that, based on this data, the aim is to establish a space radiation risk assessment system suitable for Chinese astronauts. “At the same time, we hope to provide some theoretical support for radiation monitoring and a complete radiation protection system,” he told CCTV.
Handover ceremonies between crews.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Pei said that such experiments and related research can also offer new ideas to human health problems back on Earth, such as the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. It will also provide a new theoretical basis and experimental support for exploring health problems such as osteoporosis, muscle atrophy and decreased cardiovascular function, he added.
The recently-arrived Shenzhou-20 crew has now taken over command of the space station.
Go to this informative CCTV video at:
