Time was, the Soviet Union fairly owned Venus. From 1961 to 1983, the U.S.’s old space race rival launched 16 probes, Venera 1 through Venera 16, that either flew by, orbited, or landed on Venus—with three of them failing en route.

Part of a Soviet-era spacecraft is expected to crash back to Earth this week after being stuck in orbit for more than half a century. Kosmos 482 was launched in 1972 as part of a mission to Venus but it never escaped low Earth orbit and separated into four pieces,