Soviet era space junk represents the interplanetary Cold War

A section of a stamp minature sheet displaying six historical firsts of the Soviet space program. 1964. Source: Wikipedia.

Over the weekend, an unusual piece of space junk re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. In March 1972, Kosmos 482 was launched on a journey to Venus. It never arrived. For the last 53 years, it has been orbiting Earth instead.

On late Saturday afternoon, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos reported Kosmos 482 fell into the Indian Ocean west of Jakarta, but there was significant speculation on where the spacecraft, which was descending uncontrolled, would land. Scientists estimated Kosmos 482 could strike anywhere as far north as London, to the south of South America.

Kosmos 482 was one of 29 missions the USSR sent to Venus between 1961 and 1984. It wasn’t just the Moon that was a battle arena for the Eastern and Western blocs; our planetary neighbours were also drawn into the Cold War on Earth. While the US was spending billions of dollars to put humans on the Moon in the 1960s, it was also sending out interplanetary probes and Martian missions. The USSR likewise targeted the Moon and Mars – but they also devised a series of epic missions to pierce the veil of clouds which made Venus such a mystery.

The world beneath the clouds

Venus is usually the brightest ‘star’ in the sky (so bright it is often mistaken for a UFO) and has been the subject of astronomical speculation since antiquity. After telescopes were developed in the 1600s, the surfaces of the Moon, Mars and Mercury were mapped. But thick planet-wide clouds hid the surface of Venus from scrutiny. Below them lay possibilities: an ocean world with floating islands, a steaming swamp world with forests of ferns, a harsh world of oil pools and molten metals; singing angels and telepathic frogs; a do-over Eden where the Fall had not yet happened.

When the USSR launched its first Venus probe, Venera 1, in 1961, no-one knew whether Venus was inhabited. If the USSR found the first life in the solar system outside Earth, it would have added to an impressive list of achievements – first satellite, first human in space, first spacecraft to hit the Moon, first woman in space.

The progress of the Venera programme was regularly reported in Australian newspapers, using press releases from the official Soviet news agency Tass. But failures were not publicised, and 10 of the Venus spacecraft suffered failures that left them orbiting Earth. Meanwhile, those that successfully landed on Venus sent back data which showed there were no oceans or swamps, only clouds of sulphuric acid, dry rocks and slow, hot winds of 470 degrees celsius.

First view and clear image of the surface of Venus, taken by the Venera 9 lander on October 22, 1975. Source: Wikimedia.

A series of unfortunate events

The Venera 8 mission was launched on March 27, 1972. Three days later, the spacecraft that would have been Venera 9 was launched. But as Venera 8 left Earth orbit to begin the 117 day journey, its twin suffered a rocket failure at around 9, 000 km from Earth and fell back. The disgraced spacecraft received a generic Kosmos designation.

The “bus” of Venera 8, in a warehouse pre-launch. Source: Wikimedia.

The failed rocket plunged into the atmosphere and incinerated. All that remained were five titanium spheres, pressure vessels in the fuel system, which thudded into the soil of farms in Aotearoa New Zealand. Titanium has a very high melting point and these spheres are often all that is left of a rocket. They’re so common they’re known as ‘space balls’.

The ‘bus’ which was to take the lander on to Venus continued to orbit until it let the lander go in June 1972 and entered a separate orbit. It plummeted to its death in 1981. Using a satellite tracking camera in Leiden, space debris expert Marco Langbroek determined that the lander was flying solo, and was likely to re-enter around May 10, 2025

The 465 kg titanium sphere no longer has power, or functional parachutes. Its scientific instruments have long since passed their use-by date. Whether it had hit land, or sunk to the bottom of the ocean, it was effectively an inert lump – a cultural meteorite.

But there is a vestige of agency left. All Soviet interplanetary craft carried national symbols. Kosmos 482, and the Venera 8 lander, have two medallions inside the rim. One is a square medallion of Lenin’s head and the other a pentagonal medallion showing the lander integrated with the delivery bus. These material representations of a vanished political entity have a symbolic power because of the ideologies they represent.

Inside the sphere, the instruments are encased in beryllium shells. Beryllium is a highly toxic metal, especially if inhaled. It’s widely used in aerospace, defence and nuclear industries. Although lifeless itself, if the lander splits open it can poison the life it encounters.

The chances of anything coming from Venus

This sinister side of Venus exploration is reflected in Cold War popular culture. Rather than being a fluffy ‘planet of love’, Venus became a source of danger.

In 1960, the East German film The Silent Star told the tale of a Venusian spacecraft which crashed on Earth, leaving a ‘spool’ detailing plans to destroy life on Earth with radiation and occupy it themselves. The film was so popular it was dubbed into English as First Spacecraft on Venus.

By 1963 there had been four failed missions to Venus. The London-based Australian writer Mary Elwyn Patchett published The Venus Project, a young adult novel, that year. A Russian rocket crash-lands in Arnhem Land, and aquatic Venusians escape into the waterways. Aboriginal people with telepathic powers come to the rescue.

In the US, anxiety headed in a difference direction. In the 1968 film The Night of the Living Dead, a US probe sent to orbit Venus becomes irradiated. NASA blows it up before it lands on Earth, but this distributes the virulent radiation, causing the dead to rise and consume the living in the first zombie apocalypse.

The fear of Venus even made it to prime-time television in the 1970s. In two episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man, the bionic man battles to save a town from a rogue Russian Venus probe dubbed the Death Probe, which, just like the real-life Kosmos 482, didn’t make it out of Earth orbit. A Russian rocket scientist attempts to destroy it so the US cannot learn their secret technology but fails. It’s especially difficult to destroy because it was designed for the harsh conditions of Venus.

Venus 1, Earth 0

Elon Musk has famously said that humans should become a multi-planetary species, but by that he doesn’t seem to intend Venus. Sure, the surface is pretty inhospitable to Earthly life, but some have proposed building floating cities in the upper cloud decks above the sulphuric acid layer. It’s also the clouds that hold the most promise of living organisms, although none of the evidence presented so far has stood up.

There have been no landing missions to Venus for 40 years. Kosmos 482 is the last spacecraft this side of the planet belonging to an era of Venus exploration which was perhaps more hopeful, even though the planet was also regarded as a trophy in the interplanetary Cold War.

While Kosmos 482 fell through fire to the cool greens and blues of Earthside, there were sixteen siblings cooking in the carbon dioxide oven of Venus’ surface, forgotten and forlorn.

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