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The Halley Armada is a group of space probes sent to examine Halley's Comet during its 1986 sojourn through the inner solar system, connected with apparition "1P/1982 U1". The armada consisted of one probe from the European Space Agency, two probes that were joint projects between the Soviet Union and France and two probes from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science of Japan.

Probes involved (in order of closest approach):

• Giotto, the first space probe to get close-up color images of the nucleus of a comet. (ESA)
• Vega 1, which dropped a balloon probe and lander on Venus before going on to Halley. (USSR/France Intercosmos)
• Vega 2, which dropped a balloon probe and lander on Venus before going on to Halley. (USSR/France Intercosmos)
• Suisei, also known as PLANET-A. Data from Sakigake was used to improve upon Suisei for its dedicated mission to study Halley. (ISAS)
• Sakigake, Japan's first probe to leave the Earth system, mainly a test of interplanetary mission technology. (ISAS)

Other space probes

Other space probes had their instruments examining Halley's Comet:

• Pioneer Venus Orbiter in orbit of Venus, was positioned perfectly to take measurements of Halley's Comet during its perihelion February 9th 1986. Its UV-spectrometer observed the water loss when Halley's Comet was difficult to observe from the Earth.^[1]

• International Cometary Explorer, which was repurposed as a cometary probe in 1982 and visited Comet Giacobini-Zinner in 1985, transited between the Sun and Halley's Comet in late March 1986 and took measurements.

Presumed observations from space

• Any observations of Halley's Comet made by the crew of Soyuz T-15, which made the first trip to the Mir space station in March 1986, are unknown.

• Observations of Halley's Comet would have also been made by crews on-board Space Shuttle Challenger during missions STS-51-L and STS-61-E. STS-61-E was to carry the ASTRO-1 astronomy platform in its payload bay, but was cancelled after Challenger was destroyed in a launch accident at the beginning of STS-51-L.

References