The Kosmos 482 spacecraft, a Soviet mission launched in 1972 for an unsuccessful trip to Venus, reentered Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday morning, according to a recent report.  According to the European Space Agency, which had been tracking the spacecraft’s uncontrolled descent, radar last detected Kosmos 482 over Germany. As the spacecraft neared its expected crash time, radar signals ceased, suggesting that reentry had likely already occurred, NBC News reported. So far, there have been no reports of any damage or injuries.

Kosmos 482 was part of the Soviet Union’s Venera program, which aimed to study Venus. While ten missions under the program successfully landed on the planet, Kosmos 482 failed to reach its destination due to a rocket malfunction. The lower stage of the spacecraft, containing the descent module, remained trapped in Earth’s orbit. Weighing around 1,069 pounds and measuring roughly three feet wide, the spacecraft continued circling the planet in a gradually shrinking elliptical orbit for 53 years. Eventually, it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and crashed.

Space debris falling back to Earth is fairly common. In fact, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported that more than 2,400 human-made objects re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in 2022 alone — a record number. Most of these objects either disintegrated upon reentry or crashed harmlessly into oceans.

However, Kosmos 482 was uniquely durable. Built to withstand the harsh conditions on Venus — where surface temperatures average 867 degrees Fahrenheit (464°C) — and engineered to survive descent through the planet’s dense atmosphere, the spacecraft was likely tough enough to endure Earth’s reentry process with minimal damage.

Despite growing concern about space junk, there have been no known cases of space debris causing fatalities. In a blog post about Kosmos 482, ESA officials emphasized that the risk of injury from reentering satellites is extremely low. “The annual risk of a person being injured by space debris is less than 1 in 100 billion,” they noted. “By comparison, you’re about 65,000 times more likely to be struck by lightning.”

When and where was it supposed to crash?

According to CNN, Cosmos 482 is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere sometime between 10 p.m. ET on Friday and 6:30 a.m. ET on Saturday. The European Space Agency’s tracker provides a more precise estimate, predicting the descent to occur around 2:30 a.m. ET (06:37 UTC) on Saturday