Status
Success
Vega 1
Launch Time
Sat Dec 15, 1984 09:16 UTC
Sat Dec 15, 1984 09:16 UTC
Rocket
Mission Details
Vega 1
A combined mission to Venus and Halley's comet. The whole spacecraft flew to Venus, the mothership got a gravity assist and flew on to Halley's comet while the Venus portion, consisting of a lander and a balloon, entered Venus's atmosphere. The two modules separated midflight and the lander went on to the surface while the balloon was inflated and reached a stable altitude between 53 and 54km. Due to excessive turbulence, some of the surface instruments were accidentally activated while still 20km above the surface.
The comet portion flew through the dust tail of the comet and took hundreds of pictures of the nucleus with various filters.
Payloads: 1
Total Mass: 4,920.0 kg
Heliocentric Orbit
Location
Site 200/39, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Stats
1984
125th orbital launch attempt
Proton-K
121st mission
12th mission of 1984
100th successful mission
24th consecutive successful mission