It was a 375-kilogram (827 lb) spacecraft, which was built by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, and was used as a radar calibration target for anti-ballistic missile tests.

[1] Kosmos 481 was successfully launched into low Earth orbit at 10:39:59 UTC on 25 March 1972.

[2] The launch took place from Site 133/1 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome,[3] and used a Kosmos-2I 63SM carrier rocket.

[4] The North American Aerospace Defense Command assigned it the catalogue number 05906.

[1][6] It remained in orbit until it decayed and reentered the atmosphere on 2 September 1972.