Giotto Mission: mission and targets
Data as of 2026-10-04
Dates declared by the archive
- Project start
- July 2, 1985
- Declared end
- July 10, 1992
The start the archive declares is the start of the project, not the launch, and an end it does not declare does not mean the mission is still running.
In Galaxy
Targets you can open in 3D:
A declared target is what the archive files the mission’s data under, not a record of observation.
Description published by the archive
ESA's Giotto mission was the first European deep-space mission flown. As part of the Hally Armada, Giotto was launched in July of 1985, flew by Halley's Comet on 15 March 1986 at a distance of 596 kilometers - returning the first images of a comet nucleus - and then went on to an extended mission to fly by Comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup in July 1992.
Quoted in English, as the archive publishes it, read on October 4, 2026.
Source
Identifier in the archive, which is its citation: urn:esa:psa:context:investigation:mission.giotto
NASA Planetary Data System, PDS Registry, investigation context products. Dates and targets read on September 29, 2026; how to cite the archive: https://pds.nasa.gov/datastandards/citing/