The latest projections peg the 1,000-pound spacecraft’s reentry between May 8 and May 11. A complicating factor is that Kosmos 482 was designed to withstand the extreme heat and pressure of Venus, and so the module might not burn up upon reentry but instead hold together and crash into Earth.

In 1972, the Soviet Union’s Venera 8 spacecraft became the second ever to land on Venus. It operated for 50 minutes in the planet’s harsh environment before succumbing to the intense heat. But this intrepid lander once had a sister probe named Cosmos 482. It launched four days after Venera 8 but was unable to escape low-Earth orbit and broke apart.

A defunct Soviet probe designed to land on Venus will have an uncontrolled reentry this month and pieces of it may make it to Earth's surface.