[UPDATED] You Only Die Twice (redux): the unusual and confusing double reentry of a ZQ-3 upper stage (2025-282A)

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(The title of this blogpost is inspired by a similar titled post from several years ago) 

The uncontrolled reentry of a large (assumed 7-8 ton weight) Chinese ZQ-3 (Zhuque-3) upper stage, 2025-282A (catnr. 66877), on 30 January 2026 for some reason created quite some public attention, especially in Europe. But  the event became decidedly unusual when, nine hours after the US Space Force published the Final TIP, a second Final TIP appeared. We have not seen that happening before. 

So what do we have here: an object that reentered TWICE?

The first published "final" TIP, published about an hour after the listed reentry time, was for 30 Jan 2026, 12:39 UTC ± 1m, near 54.3 S, 170.4 W. 

This time and location incidentally where a very close match to the final result of the experimental Tudat reentry model we were running for this object at Delft University of Technology (nominal 12:39 UTC, 56.0 S, 179.3 W, see here).

Jonathan McDowell and I believe that the final TIP's with a quoted 1-minute uncertainty are in fact based on space-based (satellite) observations of the reentry fireball, so they are accurate (and refer to the object starting to ablate at roughly 90-80 km altitude).

So far so good: observed and modelled reentry moment well in agreement. Nice!

But then it got confusing. Several hours later that day, the US Space Force published a second "final" TIP, also with a quoted 1-minute accuracy: 13:43 UTC ± 1m, near 3.9 S, 60.7 E. This is half-a-revolution (1h 4m) later than the first TIP.

 

Screenshot of the two relevant TIP's as published on Space-Track

 

Both locations are indicated by the yellow circles in the map in top of this post (the blue cross is the nominal result of our Tudat reentry model, the solid blue line the one-sigma uncertainty in that estimate).

So what happened here? How did this object appear to reenter TWICE?

While it could all be a clerical error or a mix-up/false detection, I suspect that this unusual "double reentry" is genuine. This particular reentry was from a somewhat eccentric orbit, more so that your average reentry. The last available orbit from ~2 revolutions before the 12:39 UTC TIP, was 211 x 102 km, with apogee decidely higher than perigee. Under such circumstances, parts might surve a low perigee (low enough to initiate ablation and partial reentry).

My suspicion therefore is that when the rocket stage initially reentered in perigee at 12:39 UTC and started to ablate and break up, a single massive/solid part survived this perigee and continued for half a revolution, before finally reentering at 13:43 UTC.

(alternatively, you could think of this as one reentry with a very, very long stretched debris strewnfield)

The longer surviving part might well be the dummy payload of this experimental launch, which remained attached to the ZQ-3 upper stage but might have separated from the upper stage during the 12:39 UTC perigee/reentry (edit: or the previous perigee pass, see post update below). If this dummy payload was a solid weight, meaning it had a much larger mass-relative-to-area (a lower area-to-mass ratio) than the rest of the rocket stage, it might have survived and come out of perigee again, while the actual upper stage meanwhile did not survive this perigee and reentered in the first spot at 12:39 UTC. The dummy payload then finally came down in the second spot at 13:43 UTC.

Although a different situation, it reminds me a bit of a confusing case from 2014, the reentry of a Russian Kobalt-M spy satellite (on which I also wrote under the title "You Only Die Twice" at the time, a blogpost which you can read here). The latter consisted of the uncontrolled reentry of shed parts over the USA, preceded by a controlled reentry of the film return capsule over Russia a few hours earlier. So a different situation, but equally confusing.

 

UPDATE  2 Feb 2026

I further investigated the hypothesis of a solid piece coming off the upper stage and surviving the initial 12:39 UTC reentry, by means of running trial-and-error models in Tudat, integrating the R/B to a certain time/altitude and taking the State Vector from that integration with a new mass and area to see if I could get a piece to survive to 13:43 UTC. I modelled for solid steel spheres (from the initial idea of a solid mass representing the dummy payload).

I have trouble to get anything surviving assuming it came off during or just before the 12:39 UTC first TIP. In order to create something that survives untill 13:43 UTC, I needed to go to a mass of 2500 kg coming off as much as half an hour before the 12:39 first TIP, at 129 km altitude: but then the remaining mass for the R/B without dummy payload does not have the R/B itself reenter at 12:39 UTC.

(added note: within error margins of the model, it however still might be possible) 

I do get a result that neatly matches both TIP's however, if I detach a small mass (only ~7.9 kg!) during the previous perigee pass, at about 11:25 UTC at an altitude of 109.5 km. This mass (with a corresponding diameter of about 12.4 cm for a solid steel object) in our Tudat model survives this perigee and the next and reenters at nominally 13:43 UTC at about 5 S, 62 E, in close agreement with the time and location of the second TIP. The R/B minus shed mass reenters earlier, around 12:39 UTC, the time of the first TIP. 

So, in summary of this scenario (see also map below):

Event I:  a ~7.9 kg. ~12.4 cm solid object detaches from the ZQ-3 R/B in perigee at 11:25 UTC;

Event II: the remaining ZQ-3 R/B reenters around 12:39 UTC at next perigee at location of TIP a;

Event III: the detached solid 7.9 kg object survives and reenters at 13:43 UTC at location of TIP b.

The object in question would however be too small to be a dummy payload (but could be a part of it) and I also wonder whether it is big enough to create a clear reentry fireball (clear enough to be seen from Space by SBIRS). So I am not entirely convinced this simulation solves the matter.

Click map to enlarge

(facetious added note: I am suddenly having hilarious visions of the dummy payload being a solid steel bobble-head statue of the Chinese LandSpace CEO, with the head coming off....)

BRIK-II is no more

On 12 November 2025, the Netherlands' first military satellite, the 6U cubesat BRIK-II (2021-058F), reentered into the atmosphere after 4 years of service. I posted about the launch and the backgrounds of this experimental small satellite in 2021.

 

BRIK-II during construction. Photo: Dutch Ministry of Defense

 

At TU Delft, we have been running a reentry model for BRIK-II in the open source TU Delft Astrodynamics Toolkit (Tudat). While for many weeks the prognosis from our model pointed steadily to 14 or 15 November 2025, things changed in the last few days when a strong series of geomagnetic storms developed, due to a series of strong solar flares. This (along with suspected attitude loss, causing a higher - and variable-  drag area) speeded up the reentry, as can be seen by the dramatic shift in the evolution of the reentry prediction during the last few days before reentry in the diagrams below:

 

click diagrams to enlarge

Our last estimate, based on the last available orbit from 12 November ~6:04 UTC, is that the cubesat reentered around 15:47 ± 1.9 hours UTC on November 12, 2025. 

The quoted error margin might, in fact, be a bit optimistic in this case, due to the unusually rough circumstances around the time of the reentry (which included the arrival of a shockwave from a X5.1-class solar flare). A more safe guess is reentry between ~11:45 and 19:45 UTC. The last available orbit on which our final forecast is based, dates from about 10 hours before the nominal reentry time from our model.

The map below shows the nominal reentry position plus the trajectory over the one- and two-sigma uncertainty interval in the prediction: 

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BRIK-II, named after the very first aircraft of the Royal Netherlands Air Force in 1912 ("Brik"), was a trailblazer for the Dutch Air and Space Force. It was an experimental satellite, meant to show that operating satellites was possible for the Dutch military, and was a way to gain the Dutch Air Force valuable experience with such operations. Three other, operational, satellites would follow in the next four years: the joint Dutch-Norwegian satellites Huygens and Birkeland, and a SAR satellite.

Brik-II (the name means, a.o., "brick") truely paved the way into Space for the Dutch Air and Space Force.

 

BRIK-II imaged on-orbit by me on 30 March 2023

(on a related note: I have started to post experimental reentry forecasts for selected objects here: https://reentry.langbroek.org)

[MULTIPLE UPDATES] Possible Space Debris found near Newman, Australia on Oct 18, might be Jielong 3 upper stage remains

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On 18 October 2025 near 14:00 local time (= 18 October ~6:00 UTC), a strange object was found on or near a dirtroad in the outback of  the Pilbara region in Western Australia. The object, suspected to be space debris, was found some 30 km east of the small mining town of Newman, as reported by ABC.

The object (photo's in the ABC report) resembles a COPV (Composite-Overwrapped Pressure Vessel), a type of space debris that often survives reentry. It reportedly was burning when found (this seems to be visible in the first photograph in the ABC report), which is unusual and against expectations for space debris. Nevertheless, the character of the object and a good match of the find location to a reentry on 18 October does persuade me to conclude that this is space debris indeed.

A possible candidate for the origin of this apparent space debris is a Chinese Jielong 3 upper stage, catnr. 61237, COSPAR 2024-173L. This object reentered on October 18, although (again! See this recent reentry) no TIP was issued by CSpOC.

I identified the object (note: so independently did Ravi Jagtiani) by assuming the report it was burning, although odd, is true, indicating a very recent impact. Using the latest orbital catalogue I first checked which objects were in orbits below 250 km on October 17-18, i.e. close to reentry, and next I ran a SatEvo analysis on this set to further cull it down to objects that should have been near reentry around that time. Starlink satellites could be excluded given the character of the debris. This left only a handfull of candidates. Of these, only one was in an orbit that would match passing close to Newman in the early hours of October 18: the mentioned Chinese Jielong 3 stage in a 97.6 degree inclined polar orbit. Using a standard SGP4 propagation as a first check, the ground-track would pass some 20-30 km east of Newman around 4:40 UTC on October 18. The rocket stage approached from the north-northeast moving towards the south-southwest.

The last available orbit for 2024-173L is for epoch 25291.03873492 (18 Oct 00:55 UTC), a few hours before the Newman object was found. Using that orbit as a starting point and deploying the reentry model we recently created in the open source Delft University of Technology Astrodynamics Toolkit (Tudat), I tried whether I could get a reentry trajectory to end ~30 km east of Newman. 

Not much information is known about the Jielong 3 components in terms of size and mass: therefore, estimates for size and mass of the upper stage had to be used. I assumed a size of about 1.5 x 1.5 meter (cf Jonathan McDowell's catalogue) and then by trail-and-error varied the mass to get an impact point as close to 30 km due east of Newman as possible.

An impact point situated directly ~30 km east of Newman results when I use a mass of ~301 kg, which seems a reasonable value for a small solid fuel upper stage build from composite. The two maps below show the Tudat modelled reentry trajectory that results from a 2.5 m² drag surface and 301 kg mass, with impact just after 4:40 UTC on 18 October (see also update II at the bottom of this post):

 

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The modelled impact time is 1 to1.5 hours before the object was reportedly found. 

So it looks like the Jielong 3 upper stage 2024-173L is a good candidate for the origin of the possible space debris object found near Newman on October 18. Rather than a COPV from the stage, it could actually be (a significant part of) the upper stage itself, given the large size that the photo's suggest (and also given that the Jielong 3 upper stage is reportedly a solid fuel stage).

As we have seen with a number of recent reentries, CSpOC alas did not provide a TIP for this object (TIP = "Time of Impact Prediction", the reentry prediction by the CSpOC reentry model). They did however release an administrative "decay message" for 2024-173L for October 18 just after the reentry, indicating that it did reenter that day.

 

UPDATE I, 21 Oct 2025 00:20 UTC:

An EU-SST reentry analysis for the Jielong 3 upper stage 2024-173L is in good agreement with my Tudat analysis.

 

UPDATE II, 21 Oct 2025 15:45 UTC:

Using Tudat, I tried to fit the orbital evolution (based on US tracking data) for 2024-173L from July 1, 2025 to October 15, 2025 to the Tudat model, playing with mass and drag area, to get at empirical values for mass and drag area. One of the solutions that fits well is a mass of 300 kg and drag area of 2.2 m² , which is close to the values I used to get it to reenter near Newman as described earlier in this blogpost. 

click diagram to enlarge

With a 300 kg mass and 2.2 m² drag area, the Tudat reentry model has it nominally surviving untill ~5:17 UTC ± 65 min, nominally reentering half an orbital revolution after passing Newman: but passing Newman actually is well within the uncertainty window of this reeentry prediction (the blue line on the map shows the trajectory over the uncertainty window):

 

click map to enlarge

In other words: this too suggests that the object found near Newman could be (a part of) the Jielong 3 upper stage 2024-173L.

 

UPDATE III, 31 Oct 2025: 

A lone TIP has suddenly been issued for 2024-173L by CSpOC today: 18 Oct 2025 4:38 ± 1m UTC near nominally 18.1 S 121.2 E.  

This conforms well to the space debris being found in Newman, as the time and location likely are based (given the ± 1 minute uncertainty) on a satellite observation of the fireball, i.e. on the location at an altitude of 80-100 km. I have plotted the position in the map below, that also depicts our Tudat reentry trajectory with associated times.

 

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[UPDATED] Identifying a reentry over the Canary Islands on 16 October as the reentry of the Chinese satellite Xinjishu Yanzheng 7 (XJY-7)

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In the early local morning of 16 October 2025 around 1:56 UTC, a spectacular phenomena appeared in the sky over Tenerife in the Canary Islands. A bright, slow, fragmenting fireball moved from south to north over the sky. Sonic booms were heard and registered by several seismic stations on Tenerife. The event clearly was a reentry of artificial space debris. For footage, see here and here. The all-sky image on the left above is from the Izana Atmospheric Research Center on Tenerife (the plotted sky map on the right is by me, for comparison, see discussion below).

I was alerted to the event by my Spanish colleague Josep Trigo (ICE-CSIC/IEEC) in the morning of October 16, who asked if I could identify which object was reentering here. A check on the CSpOC portal Space-Track did not yield a TIP that would match - as it turns out, the object in question never received a TIP, which is odd as it was heavy and large, as we will see.

So in order to identify it, I had to do some additional research. I selected all orbits from the orbital catalogue with perigee below 200 km. Next, I used SatEvo software to see which of these orbits would have a predicted reentry on October 15-16. From the handfull of candidates left, I next checked which of them would be over the Canary Islands near the time of the event (1:56 - 1:57 UTC on 16 October 2025). One object stood out - and it was one for which no TIP had been issued: the Chinese satellite Xinjishu Yanzheng 7 (XJY-7, 2020-102C), launched in 2020.

All sky imagery showing the reentry trail in the sky against a starry background had meanwhile been published on Twitter by the Izana Atmospheric Research Center on Tenerife. The general location of the trail amidst the stars in the sky and the direction of movement matched those expected for XJY-7 well. It was clear we had found our culprit.

Not much is known about XJY-7. Jonathan McDowell lists bus dimensions of about 3 x 5 x 9 meter and a dry mass near 3000 kg for this object in his catalogue. ESA's DISCOS lists similar dimensions but a mass of 5000 kg (perhaps a wet mass).

The last available orbit for XJY-7 was for epoch 25288.77158679, or 15 October 18:31 UTC, some 7h 25m before the event. To investigate further, I used the reentry model that my colleague Dominic Dirkx and I made some time ago (see earlier posts) in the Open Source Delft University of Technology Astrodynamics Toolkit (Tudat) to see whether I, with trial-and-error, could get a reentry model for XJY-7 to end over the Canary Islands. As it turns out, I could, for a mass of 2717 kg (close to 3 tons) and a drag area of 37.44 m² (the maximum drag surface listed by DISCOS), using past and current space weather.

The map below shows the resulting reentry groundtrack and times for this model integration. Note that the model does not take fragmentation and mass loss into account, so it has limitations and is an approximation only. I had the model terminate at 20 km altitude.

The figure below the map, compares the sky trajectory resulting from this model for the location of the Izana Atmospheric Research Center, to that registered by the all sky camera at Izana. They match well.

Click map to enlarge

 

click to enlarge

 

It is curious that no TIP was issued for this reentry by CSpOC. This was a large heavy object: 3 x 5 x 9 meter and 3 tons in mass. CSpOC apparently overlooked this reentry - a few hours post reentry, they however did add an administrative "decay message" for October 16 to the catalogue for this object, but without any further details. 

We recently have seen a complete lack of TIP's being issued for any object, for over a month. Only recently, CSpOC resumed issuing TIP's. CSpOC is currently clearly having some issues with their system. Luckily, we were nevertheless able to identify the object responsible for this spectacular reentry, by some diligent analysis.

 

UPDATE 17 Oct 2025  22:00 UTC:

Click map to enlarge (map updated to correct typo)

I played a little bit more with the reentry model, tinkering the area to mass ratio to get an even better fit to the sky trajectory as seen from the Izana camera station. Here is an updated plot of the modelled sky trajectory (numbers next to trajectory are atmospheric altitudes in km according to the simulation):

A mass of 2715.5 kg creates a very good fit, except for the end of the trail. That is no surprise: the reentry model is a simple model without mass loss and fragmentation, while in reality there is massive mass loss and fragmentation (meaning: changing area to mass ratio's for various fragments). When solid parts survive, heavy relative to their size, these have a lower area to mass ratio meaning they lose altitude less quickly.

Here is the improved model trajectory overlayed on the Izana camera image:

Click image to enlarge

(I thank Josep Trigo (ICE-CSIC/IEEC) and the Spanish SPMN for data and discussions)

The reentry of the Chinese Zhuque-2E upper stage 2025-103G over Kazachstan on 5 June 2025

still from one of the fireball movies posted on Twitter by @Buggy__Bugler

 

In the evening of 5 June 2025 around 22h local time (17h UTC), a slow profusely fragmenting fireball was seen and filmed from several cities in Kazachstan, including Astana, and Bishkek in neighbouring Kirgistan. It had all the well-known characteristics of a satellite or rocket stage reentry. Indeed, as it turns out, this was a rocket stage reentry: the reentry of the upper stage of a Chinese Zhuque-2E (ZQ-2E) rocket, 2025-103G, from a multiple satellite launch on May 17.

Unfortunately, some Russian and Ukranian language twitter accounts started to disseminate the footage with the wildly wrong suggestion that this was a failing Russian Oreshnik IRBM breaking up. This misinformation next proliferated very quickly via various social media, and later also traditional media (e.g. Newsweek). This while it is not a Russian Oreshnik missile at all, as already mentioned.

I was alerted to the event somewhat later that evening when several of my social media followers tagged me and asked me for my opinion. It didn't take me long to identify the event as a space-launch related reentry rather than a Russian missile. Indeed, the Kazachstan MoD had meanwhile also deemed it a space debris reentry, per various news outlets.

The object in question was 2025-103G (cat. nr. 64054), the Zhuque-2E (ZQ-2E) upper stage from a Chinese satellite launch on 17 May 2025 from Dongfeng (Jiuquan). The upper stage from this launch was left in an in initially 600 x 175 km, 96.1 degree inclined orbit.

The CsPOC TIP for this object's reentry available at that time (it was updated later), had forecast reentry at 5 June 2025, 15:40 UTC with an uncertainty of  ± 3 hours. The Kazachstan event (~17h UTC) hence was within the reentry window. When I checked the trajectory over this full window, it showed that the object would make a south-to-north pass over eastern Kazachstan around 17:10 UTC, very close in time to the Kazachstan event (which was reportedly around 10 pm local Astana time = around 17 hr UTC). Direction of movement in the various videos of the event matched well.

Later, CSpOC published a final TIP placing the reentry at 5 June 2025 17:08 UTC  ± 1 min, near 36.6 N, 73.5 E. Given the 1 minute accuracy, this is likely based on a DoD satellite observation of the reentry fireball. The TIP position is just south of Kazachstan, but a reentry is a process of several minutes duration. Moving south-to-north, the fireball created by the fragmenting space debris would move northwards, over eastern Kazachstan, in the minutes directly after this time mark. In other words, this final TIP matches the event quite well.

Below is the trajectory over the final revolution of the ZQ-2E upper stage, based on the last available TLE (epoch 25156.48638369) which dates from ~5 hours before the reentry:

 

Click map to enlarge

I next ran a reentry model with our Delft Technical University open source Astrodynamics package Tudat. The ZQ-2E upper stage has a dry mass of approximately 5000 kg and measures 12 x 3.4 meter. Using 60% of the maximum drag area for that dimension, a value usually representing the average drag surface of a tumbling (and hence showing a variable drag surface) elongated rocket stage well, the Tudat model predicts reentry near 17:03 UTC ± 1.1 hr (remember, this is based on a 5 hour old orbit), the nominal value being well in line with the Kazachstan event and nominally within 5 minutes of the CSpOC final TIP.

Next I ran the model again adjusting the drag area slightly, via trial-and-error, such that the model would conform to the estimated start of visibility of the reentry fireball, at just below  ~100 km altitude, at the time/location of the CSpOC TIP (17:08 UTC). 

I get a reasonable match when I reduce the drag area to about 58% of the maximum drag area. Below is a map showing the resulting estimated reentry trajectory (movement is from south to north):

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When I use this Tudat-estimated reentry trajectory to generate a sky track for Astana, Kazachstan, I get this approximate sky trajectory (movement is from left to right, i.e. south to north, low through the west):

Click map to enlarge

This conforms quite well to some of the video footage of the reentry (several of which show the reentry fireball pass the waxing moon), e.g.:

 

still from one of the movies posted on Twitter by @Buggy__Bugler

The predicted sky track for Astana of course depends on how accurate our Tudat-modelled atmospheric altitudes of the reentering rocket stage are. If they in reality are a bit lower than we modelled, the trajectory will be located slightly lower in the sky (and vice versa, slightly higher if the altitudes are in reality a bit higher). It is very clear however that the general direction and location of the trajectory in the sky matches well with what was seen and filmed.

As usual, I feel some frustration about the general absence of information on camera locations and time of the footage regarding the imagery of this event distributed via various social networks. Those data are important but almost never included. These matches of observations with reentry data would get so much easier if people posting footage would include the geographic location and the time. So please people: next time you post something like this, include these important data.

This event once again also showed the failure of AI as a reliable source of information for answering questions regarding events like this (we earlier saw that with the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft reentry too). Twitter's AI "Grok" generated some profound nonsense (i.e., misinformation) when people asked it to identify the character of the event, likely partly as a result of the large amount of disinformation already doing the rounds on social media about this event.

Raiders of the Lost Venus Probe: a post-mortem of an interesting reentry and the confusion it left

On 10 May 2025, an unusual object, the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft, had an uncontrolled reentry (see this earlier post).

With my TU Delft colleague Dominic Dirkx, I have written a 'post mortem' for this reentry for The Space Review of 27 May 2025, titled:

 "Raiders of the Lost Venus Probe: a post-mortem of an interesting reentry and the confusion it left"

It can be read here.

(the Tudat script we used for our reentry analysis can be downloaded here. Tudat itself can be downloaded here). 

Kosmos 482 Descent Craft reentry forecasts [PERIODICALLY UPDATED]

Click diagram to enlarge

Last update: 11 May 2025 10:15 UTC 

 

(this post is being periodically updated with new reentry forecasts/postcasts)

 

* The last Tudat nominal forecast is reentry on 10 May 2025, 6:39 UTC ± 1.5 hr *

* The Tudat nominal aftercast is reentry on 10 May 2025, 6:40 UTC ± 1.5 hr *

 

 

 

In the second week of May 2025, an unusual object reentered. It concerns the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft (1972-023E, cat. nr. 6073).

This object is the lander module from a 1972 failed Soviet Venera mission to Venus. Because of a failure of the upper stage of the rocket that launched it, it got stuck in a very elliptical orbit around Earth in 1972, instead of going to Venus. 

 

I published an extensive discussion and analysis of this object and its history three years ago in The Space Review. The identification of this object as the lander module was initially suggested by Jonathan McDowell (see his brief interesting history here).

Recently declassified Russian historic documents unearthed by Anatoly Zak point out that after failure to get to a heliocentric orbit, the lander was deliberately separated from the main bus by the spacecraft operators. My analysis published in 2022 suggests that this happened in June 1972. The lander is encased in a semi-spherical shaped Titanium protective shell, a kind of rounded metal bucket so you will (see image below).

As this is a lander that was designed to survive passage through the Venus atmosphere, it is possible that it will survive reentry through the Earth atmosphere intact, and impact intact. It likely will be a hard impact: I doubt the parachute deployment system will still work after 53 years and with dead batteries. There are many uncertain factors in whether the lander will survive reentry though, including that this will be a long shallow reentry trajectory, and the age of the object.

 

 

Venera 7 lander mock-up. The Kosmos 482 Descent Craft is probably similar. Photo: NASA

 

The risks involved are not particularly high, but not zero: with a mass of just under 500 kg and 1-meter size, risks are somewhat similar to that of a meteorite impact. A Tudat reentry analysis to ground level suggests an impact speed (after atmospheric deceleration) of about  65-70 meter per second (~242 km/h), assuming the reentering lander did not break up or extensively ablate during reentry (see the diagram below: note the logarithmic scale of the x-axis). The kinetic energy at impact is similar to that of a 40-55 cm large (after ablation) meteorite fragment. As it will likely reach earth surface as only one single object, the risks involved are lower than for example those created by a Falcon 9 upper stage reentry, which showers multiple meter-sized objects over a large area (as we saw recently with the impact of Falcon 9 remains in Poland).

 

Click diagram to enlarge

 

The diagrams below shows the change in altitude of apogee and perigee over the past 1.5 years and the past 4 months: notably apogee has been coming down steadily, but in the past few months, perigee has started to come down too. Early May 10 around 00:35 UTC, the object was in a 166 x 120 km orbit, with apogee coming down by 70 km/day and perigee by 25 km/day (and these values increasing each day, see diagram below).

 

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The reentry is an uncontrolled reentry. Even close to reeentry, we cannot say with any degree of certainty when and where the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft exactly will reenter.

With an orbital inclination of 51.95 degrees [note: I initially erroneously stated 51.7 here], the reentry can occur  between latitude 52 N and 52 S.

Over the past months, together with my colleague Dominic Dirkx,  we have been developing a reentry model for this object in Tudat.

 

Tudat, the TU Delft Astrodynamics Toolbox is open source, multi-platform Astrodynamics software developed and maintained at the Aerospace faculty of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands (where I work). The Tudat script we use for our analysis is here, while the Tudat software itself is available here.

 

The Kosmos 482 Descent Craft is probably similar to the descent craft of Venera 8 (which was launched only a few days earlier in 1972). Literature values suggest that the object is about 1 meter in size and semi-spherical, with a mass of ~495 kg. 

 

Using our Tudat model and a 1-meter diameter, and the NRLMSISE00 model atmosphere with historic space weather data, we find that the orbital evolution of  the object from mid-1972 to early 2025 is actually best matched when we use a mass of 480 kg, 15 kg less than the literature value. All our forecast predictions are therefore done using a mass of 480 kg. 

 

For our forecasts we employ the NRLMSISE00 model atmosphere, and historic spaceweather data plus estimated future space weather (solar flux). Orbit updates for each run are sourced from the US Military tracking network CSpOC (so as a note: our forecasts are not based on our own tracking data. They are based on our own custom reentry model developed at Delft University of Technology, with external tracking data from CSpOC as input).

 

Click diagram to enlarge

The diagrams in top of this post and below (which I will periodically update) give the evolution of our reentry predictions, based on orbits issued for the object since November 2024. Over the past half year, the model has consistently pointed to reentry within a few days of 9-10 May 2025. 

 

The latest nominal forecasts currently center on early May 10, but are still fluctuating with each orbital update. Early May, there was a short-lived tendency in the model runs of a shift towards a later time of reentry (i.e. May 11 rather than May 10), as can be seen in the below diagrams and the table near the end of this post. But lately, the new forecast runs have been returning to nominally May 10. 

 

 

Click diagram to enlarge

 

Click diagram to enlarge

 

The brief shift towards a later date in the early May model runs was due to space weather forecasts underestimating future solar activity at that time. I had started to note this (when comparing earlier forecast solar flux values to actual solar flux values for the last days of April  and the first days of May) and already expected the nominal forecasts to return to May 10, as they now indeed have done.

 

This highlights the influence of uncertainties in estimated future solar activity on the forecasts. Future solar activity is not well predictable. Even the best reentry models will be off in their forecast if actual solar activity in the window between the moment of forecast and the moment of reentry develops differently than the predictions. Solar flux variations are an important driving factor of short-term variations in density and extent of the upper atmosphere. The latter determine how many drag the object experiences over its orbit, and with that how quick the orbit decays. Stronger solar activity will mean an earlier reentry, lower solar activity a later reentry.

 

Of course, at this point the uncertainty in the forecast is still +/- 1.5 hours. Yet, the uncertainty window has now decreased to the point that we can rule out certain parts of the world: Africa is safe. So is Japan, East Asia, and the USA.

 

The map below gives the trajectory of the object over the current uncertainty window of the Tudat reentry forecast (red dots are cities with over 1 million inhabitants, between latitude 52 N and 52 S). In our model the spacecraft could have reentered anywhere along the blue line:

 

Click map to enlarge

 

 

CSpOC, the US military tracking network, has started to provide TIP (Time of Impact Prediction) messages for the object since May 6. They are depicted as red circles in the diagram earlier in this post.

 

The last orbit update published by CSpOC has epoch 10 May 2025, 00:36 UTC, i.e. dates from about 6 hours before the time we think it actually reentered. There are later radar detections from Europe, per ESA, dating to as late as 6:04 UTC, but no orbit based on that has been published.

A roundup of current reentry forecasts from various sources (each running their own reentry model) compiled 10 May 15:30 UTC:

 

Tudat forecast:              10 May   06:39 ± 91  min UTC

Tudat postcast:              10 May   06:40 ± 91  min UTC

Aerospace Corp forecast:     10 May   06:29 ± 120 min UTC

RosCosmos postcast:          10 May   06:24 ± ?   min UTC

ESA postcast:                10 May   06:16 ± 22  min UTC

EU-SST forecast:             10 May   06:04 ± 20  min UTC

CSpOC TIP postcast:          10 May   05:32 ± 12  min UTC *

 

* this cannot be correct given that a positive radar detection from Germany at 6:04 UTC was reported by ESA.

 

note: forecast = issued before the reentry; postcast = issued after the reentry after re-analysis.

 

ESA reports that they had a positive radar detection of the spacecraft, still on-orbit, at 6:04 UTC while it was passing over Germany (presumably with the TIRA radar); and a negative detection one orbital revolution later, at 7:32 UTC. This implies reentry during the window 6:04 - 7:32 UTC. Five of the forecasts fall in that window: our Tudat forecast, and those by RosCosmos, ESA, the Aerospace Corporation, and also EU-SST when taking the error margins on the latter into account.

 

Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, on Telegram states reentry at "6:24 UTC" over the Indian Ocean. That is not too far (15 minutes) from our latest TUDAT model results. Three remarks: (1) this is not a reentry detection but likely another model result (just as the others), based on an earlier groundbased detection during a pass over presumably southern Russia. (2) It does not come with a stated uncertainty window: is that 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour? (3) It remains a question how serious one should take Russian State statements these days as sometimes pragmatic considerations (such as deliberate denial of responsibility or risk) are leading. 

 

While many news media seem to treat the RosCosmos announcement as 'authoritive' and the 'most accurate' or 'final' say on the matter, there is in reality no clear reason to do so. It is not clear at all whether the RosCosmos position is more accurate than the other model estimates, and how meaningful the stated positions and time are given the lack of error margin information.

A final accurate TIP from CSpOC has not yet appeared (and might not appear if they have no space-based detections of the reentry fireball). CSpOC sometimes, several hours to a day after a reentry, publishes a very accurate (with quoted +- 1 minute uncertainty) final TIP which Jonathan McDowell and I believe is not based on a reentry model, but on space-based (SBIRS satellite) detections of the reentry fireball, hence the accuracy. They have not issued such a TIP so far for this reentry, unfortunately. Note that their last issued TIP cannot be correct, given the reported positive radar detection of the spacecraft passing over Germany at 6:04 UTC.

 

This is how the nominal reentry points have been placed by various organisations, each based on their own modelling:

 

Click map to enlarge

 

It is clear that the assessments spread. Ignoring the clearly incorrect CSpOC TIP, the other models all suggest reentry over either southwest Asia or the Indian Ocean. My verdict is that the latter area is the most likely place.

 

Below is the evolution of the reentry forecast from our TU Delft Tudat model in tabular form, latest forecast at the bottom. Please take note of the uncertainty values listed in the last column!

 

The 'postcast' value is a re-run of the model after-the-fact based on the last published orbit and the actual rather than estimated space weather of May 10.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------
TUDAT REENTRY FORECAST EVOLUTION for KOSMOS 482 Descent Craft
M. Langbroek & D. Dirkx, Delft University of Technology

Date/times in UTC

REFERENCE ORBIT    ORBIT EPOCH      REENTRY FORECAST   +/-   
----------------------------------------------------------------
15-11-2024 05:43   24320.23870400   05-05-2025 23:33   42.9 days   
01-12-2024 05:32   24336.23116452   08-05-2025 09:09   39.5 days   
15-12-2024 18:58   24350.79080401   07-05-2025 11:51   35.7 days   
01-01-2025 11:20   25001.47260254   09-05-2025 07:20   32.0 days   
15-01-2025 03:23   25015.14140884   10-05-2025 20:40   28.9 days   
02-02-2025 08:54   25033.37115746   13-05-2025 17:52   25.1 days   
15-02-2025 03:20   25046.13941015   11-05-2025 09:52   21.3 days   
01-03-2025 00:07   25060.00535989   10-05-2025 17:51   17.7 days   
15-03-2025 05:56   25074.24770046   10-05-2025 07:57   14.0 days   
30-03-2025 12:05   25089.50360681   09-05-2025 21:11   10.1 days   
13-04-2025 21:32   25103.89775709   09-05-2025 22:01    6.5 days   
20-04-2025 01:39   25110.06916305   09-05-2025 11:31    4.9 days   
22-04-2025 21:24   25112.89204293   09-05-2025 12:48    4.2 days   
23-04-2025 22:57   25113.95657237   09-05-2025 19:43    4.0 days   
27-04-2025 00:27   25117.01893077   10-05-2025 04:52    3.3 days   
28-04-2025 00:24   25118.01685903   10-05-2025 06:33    3.1 days   
28-04-2025 22:50   25118.95143786   10-05-2025 06:01    2.8 days   
01-05-2025 20:57   25121.87323063   10-05-2025 14:30    2.2 days   
02-05-2025 09:12   25122.38386703   11-05-2025 02:36    2.2 days   
02-05-2025 12:16   25122.51167762   11-05-2025 03:41    2.2 days   
02-05-2025 17:52   25122.74476620   11-05-2025 06:50    2.1 days   
03-05-2025 18:07   25123.75533175   10-05-2025 20:48    1.8 days   
03-05-2025 21:05   25123.87876286   10-05-2025 23:06    1.8 days   
04-05-2025 20:47   25124.86648285   10-05-2025 19:05    1.5 days   
05-05-2025 20:29   25125.85361170   10-05-2025 07:26    1.1 days   
06-05-2025 09:39   25126.40254557   10-05-2025 08:37    1.0 day
06-05-2025 21:26   25126.89335737   10-05-2025 07:51   20.6 hr
07-05-2025 21:00   25127.87559184   10-05-2025 07:34   14.6 hr
08-05-2025 11:31   25128.48053679   10-05-2025 07:24   11.0 hr
08-05-2025 13:13   25128.55136979   10-05-2025 07:34   10.6 hr
08-05-2025 19:13   25128.80083450   10-05-2025 07:54    9.2 hr
09-05-2025 12:37   25129.52575525   10-05-2025 06:23    4.4 hr
09-05-2025 14:12   25129.59226104   10-05-2025 06:30    4.1 hr
09-05-2025 15:43   25129.65543839   10-05-2025 06:35    3.7 hr
09-05-2025 19:55   25129.82989846   10-05-2025 06:34    2.7 hr
10-05-2025 00:35   25130.02495443   10-05-2025 06:39    1.5 hr

                               nominal location 35.7 S 126.5 E

POSTCAST:

10-05-2025 00:35   25130.02495443   10-05-2025 06:40    1.5 hr

                               nominal location 38.0 S 129.8 E

 

I will periodically update this table with new forecasts, more frequently so when the reentry dates comes nearer.

Here is footage I shot of the Kosmos 482 Descent Craft with my tracking camera in Leiden, in 2020:

An added note: about that parachute....

To muddy the waters further, a story is spreading that the parachute of the landing craft might already have deployed in space. This is based on telescopic imagery purportedly showing this.

I have strong doubts that the imagery in question shows any meaningful detail. The imagery has the same origin, and the same problems attached, as the imagery I discussed in 2022 in my Space Review article. I think the "detail" is the result of camera/telescope shake and atmospheric distortion.

 

UPDATE 28 May 2025:
With my colleague Dominic Dirkx, I wrote a 'post mortem' on the reentry for The Space Review that can be read here.

This post has been updated with new forecasts and additional background information several times