ESA Blogs

Here's a blog post by ESA that talks about what controlled reentry means. https://blogs.esa.int/cleanspace/2018/11/16/basics-about-controlled-and-semi-controlled-reentry/ Controlled requires precise aiming towards a targeted location. Not just the operator deciding to do something. By ESA's definition Starlink de-orbits aren't even "semi-controlled".

This generally involves landing at a precise location of the Earth. It goes by a nickname, Point Nemo. A patch of ocean in the south pacific farthest away from any land. It's also far from standard shipping lanes. If you can't achieve this type of targeting it, definitionally, is not a controlled re-entry.

> It simply means aiming for a certain latitude by adjusting the orbit accordingly

You cannot aim a satellite for a "certain latitude" as orbits cannot follow lines of latitude. That's not how orbital dynamics work. I'm not quite sure what you meant to convey here.

> This also means that the target is not "all over the world" as you put it - it's a very narrow, well defined stripe/trace (remember the scale we're talking about here!) and that's exactly what a controlled de-orbit is about.

No it's all over the world, definitionally, because low earth orbits cross the entire planet as the Earth rotates. The possible locations the satellite can re-enter span a large portion of the globe from the negative to the positive latitude equivalent to the spacecraft's inclination.

I think you have a major misunderstanding yourself.…

This almost certainly just shows its usual orbit. I've had no luck finding a source of real-time info.

The European Space Agency (ESA) publishes occasional updates here: https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/05/07/reentry-prediction-soviet-era-venera-venus-lander-cosmos-482-descent-craft/ . The most recent one is from about 1h20m ago:

"10 May 09:56 CEST. As the descent craft was not spotted by radar over Germany at the expected 07:32 UTC / 09:32 CEST pass, it is most likely that the reentry has already occurred."

This was published about 20 minutes ago, but basically just quotes ESA:

"Kosmos-482: Out-of-control Russian spacecraft probably just fell to Earth, experts say" https://www.independent.co.uk/space/kosmos-482-russian-spacecraft-satellite-earth-b2748420.html

The pic you linked to was taken with a different camera (NAVCAM), the pictures in this article (OSIRIS) are much better, and clearly show the lander before and after touchdown along with marks where it first landed/bounced. What they don't show unfortunately is the final resting place, but that's a bit tricky because of comet rotation, comet shape (not a flat surface), and the parabolic trajectory of the lander.

What's the confusion about the time? Touchdown was at 15:34 UTC (NB UTC), I doubt anyone at ESA is confused about the time, though some of the commenters seem pretty confused on the ESA blog post this BBC article is based on:

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/17/osiris-spots-philae-drifting-across-the-comet/

Generally caves have elevated CO2 levels not because of human respiration, but because of outgassing - they're generally eroded out of carbonate minerals, and so the water flowing in carries CO2 inside at higher concentrations than the outside world. The smaller the subsystem the human is isolated in, the faster they perturb that equilibrium toward an even higher CO2 level.

The ESA, of all groups, has a pretty good write-up on this: http://blogs.esa.int/caves/2014/11/19/the-science-of-caves-environmental-science-co2/ They use cave exploration for astronaut team-building, process/workflow training, and acculturation.

The upper stage gets left behind in Earth orbit. The Briz-M stage provides the kick to propel the payload to a higher orbit and then usually there's a kick motor that follows up, in this case, delivering a Trans-Mars Injection maneuver to set the spacecraft on its way to Mars.

EDIT: Actually realised I'm wrong since the Briz-M is the 4th stage, not the 3rd. The 3rd stage remains in orbit and then splashes down and the 4th stage actually provides the entire kick for TMI [1]

[1] http://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2016/03/13/why-exomars-ride-to-space-takes-the-time-it-does/

>with no hope of doing an update

To be fair, space probes occasionally do get software updates, eg http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/03/28/software-upgrade-at-655-million-kilometres/

In the case of the Curiosity Rover, it didn't even "ship" with the software of what it was supposed to do on Mars until it had landed there http://www.space.com/17034-mars-rover-curiosity-software-upgrade.html

Edit: I'm not saying this was possible in 1969. I posted this because I was genuinely curious if it was ever done.