Definition
The Giotto spacecraft (Fig. 1), the first ESA (European Space Agency) interplanetary probe, was designed to flyby comet Halley. Launched on 2 July 1985 by an Ariane-1 rocket from Kourou, Giotto succeeded in approaching the cometary nucleus to within 600 km on 14 March 1986. Through its first accurate images of a nucleus and in situ studies of gases and dust particles within a coma, the mission has revealed the complexity of comets. Afterwards, the Giotto spacecraft was re-oriented in order to study comet Grigg-Skjellerup, which was flown by on 10 July 1992, at a nucleus distance in the 150–200 km range.
Giotto spacecraft
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References and Further Reading
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Levasseur-Regourd, AC. (2015). Giotto Spacecraft. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44185-5_648
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