A defunct Soviet spacecraft, Cosmos-482, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and crashed into the Indian Ocean on Saturday, according to Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos.
The spacecraft descended into the dense layers of the atmosphere at 9:24 a.m. Moscow time (0624 GMT), falling approximately 560 kilometers west of Middle Andaman Island, near Jakarta.
Roscosmos confirmed that the descent was tracked by Russia’s automated space hazard warning system.
Originally launched in 1972 as part of a Soviet mission to Venus, Cosmos-482 suffered a malfunction that prevented it from escaping Earth’s orbit. The probe remained in a high elliptical orbit for over five decades, slowly drifting closer to Earth before its final descent.
