Saturday, October 17, 2026
Science

Forecasting air drag with deep learning helps predict when uncontrolled satellites and rocket stages fall to Earth

On May 10, 2025, a spacecraft built in the Soviet Union to land on Venus came home. Launched in 1972, Cosmos-482 was stranded by a failed upper stage of its rocket and circled Earth for 53 years. In its last days, several space agencies and research groups forecasted when it would fall, and therefor...

Forecasting air drag with deep learning helps predict when uncontrolled satellites and rocket stages fall to Earth
Image: Phys.org
On May 10, 2025, a spacecraft built in the Soviet Union to land on Venus came home. Launched in 1972, Cosmos-482 was stranded by a failed upper stage of its rocket and circled Earth for 53 years. In its last days, several space agencies and research groups forecasted when it would fall, and therefore where. Roscosmos later reported that it came down in the Indian Ocean, west of Jakarta.

Originally published at Phys.org

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