Soviet-era spacecraft is set to plunge to Earth a half-century after its failed launch to Venus

By MARCIA DUNN CAPE CANAVERAL Fla AP A Soviet-era spacecraft meant to land on Venus in the s is expected to soon plunge uncontrolled back to Earth Related Articles NASA astronauts step outside space station to perform the th all-female spacewalk Want your own personal satellite Here s how and what it ll cost NASA s Lucy spacecraft is speeding toward another close encounter with an asteroid Tatooine-like planet outside the solar system may orbit two failed stars scientists say Northern lights forecast in Vermont New Hampshire Maine It s too early to know where the half-ton mass of metal might come down or how much of it will survive reentry according to space debris-tracking experts Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek predicts the failed spacecraft will reenter around May He estimates it will come crashing in at mph if it remains intact While not without pitfall we should not be too worried Langbroek revealed in an email The object is relatively small and even if it doesn t break apart the danger is similar to that of a random meteorite fall several of which happen each year You run a bigger menace of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime he reported The chance of the spacecraft certainly hitting someone or something is small he added But it cannot be entirely excluded The Soviet Union launched the spacecraft known as Kosmos in one of a series of Venus missions But it never made it out of Earth orbit because of a rocket malfunction Bulk of it came tumbling down within a decade But Langbroek and others believe the landing capsule itself a spherical object about feet meter in diameter has been circling the world in a highly elliptical orbit for the past years gradually dropping in altitude It s quite viable that the -pound-plus nearly -kilogram spacecraft will survive reentry It was built to withstand a descent through the carbon dioxide-thick atmosphere of Venus stated Langbroek of Delft University of System in the Netherlands Experts doubt the parachute system would work after so several years The heat shield may also be compromised after so long in orbit It would be better if the heat shield fails which would cause the spacecraft to burn up during its dive through the atmosphere the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Jonathan McDowell noted in an email But if the heat shield holds it ll reenter intact and you have a half-ton metal object falling from the sky The spacecraft could reenter anywhere between degrees north and south latitude or as far north as London and Edmonton in Alberta Canada almost all the way down to South America s Cape Horn But since majority of the planet is water chances are good it will indeed end up in several ocean Langbroek announced The Associated Press Vitality and Science Department receives help from the Howard Hughes Biological Institute s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The AP is solely responsible for all content