Vega 1

Mission Profile

Vega 1 was a Soviet spacecraft launched on 15 December 1984 aboard a Proton-K as part of a joint mission with France and other European nations, designed to conduct flybys of both Venus and Halley's Comet. At Venus in June 1985, Vega 1 deployed a lander and an atmospheric balloon probe before using Venus's gravity to redirect itself toward Halley's Comet, which it flew past at 8,900 km distance on 6 March 1986. The mission returned the first close-up images of a comet nucleus, revealing an irregularly shaped, very dark body approximately 15 km long. Vega 1 and its twin Vega 2 provided the targeting data that enabled ESA's Giotto spacecraft to approach Halley's nucleus at only 596 km, making the Vega program an essential enabler of the first close comet encounter.