More than 50 years after trying to reach Venus, a failed Soviet spacecraft is about to return to Earth

By Alice Gorman, Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University

During the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, the USSR launched 29 spacecraft towards Venus, the planet scientists call Earth’s “twin sister”.

Three flew past Venus, and went into orbit around the Sun. Sixteen orbited or landed on Venus, where they experienced a climate often described as “hellish”.

Ten got stuck in Earth orbit. All of them re-entered Earth’s atmosphere…

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