In 1985, two Soviet spacecraft carried out a major mission that took them from Venus to Halley’s Comet. Vega 1 and Vega 2 were designed to place landers on Venus, release balloons into its atmosphere, and then use Venusian gravity to fly their remaining buses past Halley.
The twin spacecraft were part of what was described as perhaps the most ambitious Soviet deep-space mission to date. The project was a cooperative effort involving the Soviet Union, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and West Germany. The balloon gondolas were French-made.
