The Halley Mission
After their encounters, the Vegas' motherships were redirected by Venus' gravity to intercept Comet Halley.
Vega 1 made its closest approach on March 6, around 8,890 km from the nucleus, and Vega 2 made its closest approach on March 9 at 8,030 km. The data intensive examination of the comet covered only the three hours around closest approach. They were intended to measure the physical parameters of the nucleus, such as dimensions, shape, temperature and surface properties, as well as to study the structure and dynamics of the coma, the gas composition close to the nucleus, the dust particles' composition and mass distribution as functions of distance to the nucleus and the cometary-solar wind interaction.
In total Vega 1 and Vega 2 returned about 1,500 images of Comet Halley. Spacecraft operations were discontinued a few weeks after the Halley encounters.
The on-board TV system was created in international cooperation of the scientific and industrial facilities from the USSR, Hungary, France and Czechoslovakia. TV data were processed by international team, including the USSR, Hungary, France, GDR and USA scientists. The basic steps of data acquisition and preprocessing were performed in IKI using the image processing computer system, based on PDP11/40 compatible host.
Vega 1 and 2 are currently in heliocentric orbits.
Read more about this topic: Vega Program
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“Every Age has its own peculiar faith.... Any attempt to translate into facts the mission of one Age with the machinery of another, can only end in an indefinite series of abortive efforts. Defeated by the utter want of proportion between the means and the end, such attempts might produce martyrs, but never lead to victory.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)