Venera 15 and Venera 16, each weighing just under 9,000 pounds (4,100 kg), did not carry landers. In their place they brought highly advanced radar-based imaging systems that could map the ...

"Being off even a little bit represents hundreds or thousands of kilometers in distance on the surface of the Earth." ...

That was the future that awaited Venera 9 too, but things didn’t work out for what turned out to be a snakebit ship. After reaching Earth orbit, it fired its engine to enter what is known as a ...

O n this date, Jan. 6, 1969, the Soviet Union launched the Venera 5 spacecraft, which was part of an ongoing mission to explore Earth’s sister planet, Venus. Venera 5 successfully entered Venus ...

Venera 8 sped on its way to Venus, sending its lander down on July 22. Fate had something different in store for Kosmos 482. Venera 9 took the first images of the surface in 1975.

In 1972, the Soviet Union launched a pair of space probes destined for Venus.While the USSR’s Venera 8 successfully reached its destination, a malfunctioning Soyuz rocket ensured its sibling ...

A fragment of the failed Soviet Venus probe Cosmos 482 is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere around May 10, though experts say the exact timing and location remain uncertain.

Cosmos 482, launched in 1972 as part of the Soviet Union's Venera program, which intended to explore Venus, is forecasted to return to Earth around 2:30 a.m. ET, plus or minus four hours ...

While America had won the race to the moon, the Soviet Union, through its Venera program, kept its sights on Venus, Earth’s twisted sister. From 1961 to 1984, the Soviets launched 29 spacecraft ...

Workers prepare Venera 4, a Soviet space probe, for its flight to Venus' atmosphere in 1967. Sovfoto / Universal Images Group via Getty Images In 1972, the Soviet Union’s Venera 8 spacecraft ...

Kosmos 482—originally launched on March 31, 1972, as part of the Soviet Union's ambitious Venera program to explore Venus—is expected to make a crash landing on Earth around May 9–10, 2025.