Portal:Spaceflight/Selected article/Week 10 2009

Giotto was a robotic spacecraft mission of the European Space Agency which flew by and studied Halley's Comet. The mission was launched on an Ariane 1 rocket on 2 July 1985 and on 13 March 1986 the spacecraft approached Halley's nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometers, becoming the first spacecraft to provide pictures of a comet nucleus. (more...)