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Giotto Mission
The Giotto spacecraft was launched on 2 July 1985 to study comet 1P/Halley. The spacecraft carried instruments to image the nucleus, analyze components of the cometary coma, the cometary atmosphere and ionosphere, cometary dust particles, and plasma flows resulting from the interaction of cometary and solar wind. Giotto encountered comet 1P/Halley on 13 March 1986 and came within 596 km of the nucleus. Following the encounter Giotto was placed into a hibernation mode. The spacecraft was reactivated for an extended mission in 1992. Giotto encountered comet 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup on 10 July 1992 and came within a distance of approximately 200 km of the nucleus. Spacecraft operations were terminated on 23 July 1992.
The SBN is the lead PDS node for archiving Giotto data which are also available through the ESA Planetary Science Archive.
On-Board Instruments
- Instrument Details (Data from these instruments are archived at SBN.)
- Dust Impact Detector System (DID)
- Energetic Particle Analyzer (EPA)
- Radio Science Experiment (GRE)
- Halley Multicolour Camera (HMC)
- Ion Mass Spectrometer (IMS)
- Johnstone Plasma Analyzer (JPA)
- Magnetometer (MAG)
- Optical Probe Experiment (OPE)
- Particle Impact Analyzer (PIA)
- Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS) - Composition and energy of neutral gas in the coma
- Other Instruments (Spacecraft has other instruments, data from which may be archived at another PDS node or public archive.)
- RPA-(Réme) Copernic Plasma Experiment (RPA) - Velocity distributions of electrons; composition/distribution of thermal positive ions near comet
Mission Data
- Giotto Dust Impact Detector Observations near Comet Halley
- Giotto Radio Science Experiment Observations of Comet Halley
- Giotto Radio Science Experiment - Additional Observations of Comet Halley
- Giotto Halley Multi-Colour Camera Observations of Comet Halley
- Giotto Ion Mass Spectrometer, High Energy Range Spectrometer Observations of Comet Halley
- Giotto Ion Mass Spectrometer, High Intensity Spectrometer Observations of Comet Halley
- Giotto Johnstone Plasma Analyzer Merged Results for Comet Halley
- Giotto Magnetometer 8-second Observations of Comet Halley
- Giotto Optical Probe Experiment Photopolarimetry of Comet Halley
- Giotto Particulate Impact Analyzer Observations near Comet Halley
- Stooke Shape Models including Halley
- Giotto Neutral Mass Spectrometer Density Profiles of Comet Halley
Other Target Observations
- International Halley Watch Archive
- Giotto Extended Mission Archive including Ground-based CCD Images of 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup
Related Datasets
Use the Small Bodies Data Ferret to find other datasets for this mission/target.
