Kosmos 482 —originally launched on March 31, 1972, as part of the Soviet Union's ambitious Venera program to explore Venus—is expected to make a crash landing on Earth around May 9–10, 2025. Due to a rocket malfunction shortly after launch, the spacecraft never made it out of Earth's orbit.

In 1972, the Soviet Union’s Venera 8 spacecraft became the second ever to land on Venus. It operated for 50 minutes in the planet’s harsh environment before succumbing to the intense heat. But this intrepid lander once had a sister probe named Cosmos 482. It launched four days after Venera 8 but was unable to escape low-Earth orbit and broke apart.

In 1972, the Soviet Union launched a pair of space probes destined for Venus. While the USSR’s Venera 8 successfully reached its destination, a malfunctioning Soyuz rocket ensured its sibling Kosmos 482 craft never made it past Earth’s orbit.