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ESA Bulletin: The ESA History Project History Study Reports A History of the European Space Agency, Volume I: A History of the European Space Agency, Volume II:
Remembering Giotto Twenty-five years ago, during the night of 13-14 March 1986, the Giotto spacecraft swept within 600 km of Comet Halley, obtaining the first ever close-up images of a comet nucleus. Giotto was a pioneering space mission with a number of very impressive ‘firsts’ and achievements to its credit. Here we look back with a few 'behind the scenes' images.
1 | 2 Fitting of Giotto's high-gain antenna
Giotto ready for the solar simulation test
Giotto spacecraft during the solar simulation test
Giotto launch preparations
Giotto launch on Ariane 1, 1985
Giotto Deputy Project Scientist at console on ESOC
Giotto Project Scientist, Dr Ruediger Reinhard
Dr Ruediger Reinhard describes data from Giotto
Dr Uwe Keller, Principal Investigator, HMC
1 | 2 History of Europe in space
Giotto, ESA's first deep-space mission: 25 years ago Space Science
ESA's comet chaser
ESOC
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Giotto overview Related articles
The birth of Giotto Giotto’s brief encounter Giotto’s second comet encounter Giotto’s comet results The post-Halley era Life of a comet ESA observes Deep Impact from Earth Dust and gas from Comet 9P/Tempel 1 seen by ESA OGS
