Jul 2 1985
From The Space Library
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it launched at 11.23 hours GMT July 2 Giotto, ESAs interplanetary space probe that would after a 700 million km voyage encounter Halley’s Comet in March 1986. ESA launched Giotto by an Ariane 1 launcher from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, the ninth straight success for the agency's unmanned Ariane 1 rocket.
The rocket placed Giotto into a geostationary transfer orbit with parameters of 35,966 km, apogee; 199.2 km, perigee; and 7° inclination. Following separation from the launcher's third stage 22 minutes after liftoff, ESAs Space Operations Centre (ESOC) at Darmstadt, West Germany, took control of the spacecraft. During the following 32 hours, ESOC spacecraft controllers worked around the clock to reconfigure the spacecraft in its geostationary transfer orbit and carry out spin-up and attitude maneuvers. After Giotto made three revolutions in its transfer orbit, ESOC at 19.24 hours GMT July 3 injected the spacecraft into an earth-escape trajectory.
Giotto, named for the 14th-century artist Giotto de Bondone, who in 1301 witnessed what probably was Halley’s Comet, should come within 310 miles of the comet's five-mile-diameter nucleus. When the spacecraft reached its rendezvous, ESA scientists expected it to be destroyed by billions of high-speed dust particles pouring off the comet's nucleus. Before its destruction, Giotto would perform approximately 10 experiments examining the image, chemistry, magnetism, and other aspects of the comet and its tail.
Other spacecraft participating in the Halley’s Comet investigation were the USSR's Vega 1 and 2, launched December 15 and December 21, 1984, respectively, to encounter the comet at a distance of 62,000 miles; Japan's Sakigake launched January 8, 1985, and Planet A, scheduled for launch in August 1985 to photograph the comet's tail at a distance of 160,000 miles; and NASA's International Comet Explorer, ICE (formerly ISEE-3), launched December 22, 1983, and diverted from its previous earth orbiting position for the Halley’s Comet encounter. (ESA release July 2/85; ESA release July 4/85; W Post, July 3/85, A3)
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