Vega 2

Launch Success

Liftoff Time (GMT)

09:13:51

Friday December 21, 1984

Mission Details

Vega 2

Wiki

Identical to 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. The lander recorded a pressure of 91atm and a temperature of 736K, and transmitted other information too. It transmitted from the surface for 56 minutes. The comet portion flew through the dust tail of the comet and took hundreds of pictures of the nucleus with various filters. Vega-2 was able to get higher resolution pictures than Vega 1 because there was less dust in the tail at the time.

Heliocentric Orbit

1 Payload

4,920 kilograms

Rocket

Retired
Proton-K/Block D-1

Active 1975 to 1989

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center logo

Manufacturer

Khrunichev

Rocket

Height: 56.14m

Payload to Orbit

LEO: 19,000 kg

GTO: 9,000 kg

Liftoff Thrust

9,468 Kilonewtons

Fairing

Diameter: 3.9m

Height: 10.4m

Stages

4

Launch Site

Site 200/40

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

Fastest Turnaround

26 days 14 hours

Stats

Proton-K


122nd

Mission

13th

Mission of 1984

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center


1869th

Mission

99th

Mission of 1984

1984


128th

Orbital launch attempt