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After 53 years, a failed Soviet Venus spacecraft is crashing back to Earth


The spacecraft suffered an engine anomaly that left it stuck in Earth's orbit for decades, and now it's slated for an uncontrolled reentry.

The lander module from an old Soviet spacecraft is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere during the second week of May, according to Marco Langbroek, a satellite tracker based in Leiden, the Netherlands. The mission was an attempt by the Soviet space program to reach Venus, but it failed to gain enough velocity to enter a transfer trajectory toward the scorching-hot planet. The failed mission consisted of a carrier bus and a lander probe, which together form a spherical pressure vessel weighing more than 1,000 pounds (495 kilograms).

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