Parts of a Soviet era spacecraft that have spent the last 50 years trapped in orbit are set to crash to Earth this week, according to NASA. The American space agency says that Kosmos 482, which was launched in 1972, could re-enter the world’s atmosphere on May 10, with some parts expected to survive their perilous journey.

The spacecraft was part of a Soviet mission to Venus which failed to escape Earth’s low orbit and broke into four pieces and has spent the past half a century trapped in orbit. Scientists remain unsure where the parts will land, with the potential for it to drop into the sea, making the risk to those on land minimal. Mr Stijn Lemmens, senior space debris mitigation analyst at the European Space Agency, said: “It's much more likely that you win the lottery than that you get impacted by this piece of space debris.”

The spacecraft was launched four days after the Venera 8 atmospheric probe and had an identical design and mission plan.

After achieving an Earth parking orbit, the spacecraft made an apparent attempt to launch into a Venus transfer trajectory but separated into four pieces, two of which remained in low Earth orbit and decayed within 48 hours.

Two further pieces remained in orbit for more than 50 years, with one set to fall to earth in the coming days.

As of this week, the potential landing location is expected to comprise much of the inhabited world, with a landing zone encompassing as far north as London to as far south as southern Argentina.

Nasa said: “As of May 6, the landing location could be anywhere between 52 N and 52 S latitude.

“The time and location of atmospheric re-entry should be known more accurately over the next few days, but the uncertainty will be fairly significant right up to re-entry.”

Mr Lemmens said that "re-entry of human-made objects into Earth's atmosphere occurs quite frequently," as he stated that most typically burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere before reaching the ground.

In January this year, a large metallic object, believed to be part of a space rockets separation stage fell to Earth, landing in a remote Kenyan village.

Sara Webb, an astrophysicist at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, said that such events are now happening “almost every month or two.”

She said: “We’ve reached this point in our exploration and use of space where this isn’t just something that happens once in a blue moon, it is now almost every month or two.”

Given the rise in incidents, Mr Lemmens has called for future aircraft to be “designed in such a way that they can take themselves out of orbit safely, preferably by doing controlled re-entries".

This would allow authorities to predict exact locations of landings and reduce the risk of injury, death or destruction in populated areas.