Editing Vega program (section)

==The Halley mission==
[[File:1986 venera galley nh.jpg|thumb|250px|1985 [[USSR]] [[miniature sheet]] dedicated to the program, depicting the ''[[Vega 1]]'' spacecraft, [[Comet Halley]], and the [[Interkosmos]] logo]]
After their encounters, the Vega motherships were redirected to intercept [[Comet Halley]], utilizing the gravity of Venus to alter their trajectory.

''Vega 1'' made its closest approach on 6 March, around {{cvt|8,890|km}} from the nucleus, and ''Vega 2'' made its closest approach on 9 March at {{cvt|8,030|km}}. The data intensive examination of the comet covered only the three hours around closest approach. They were intended to measure the physical parameters of the nucleus, such as dimensions, shape, temperature, and surface properties, as well as to study the structure and dynamics of the [[Coma (cometary)|coma]], the gas composition close to the nucleus, the dust particles' composition and mass distribution as functions of distance to the nucleus, and the cometary-[[solar wind]] interaction.

In total ''Vega 1'' and ''Vega 2'' returned about 1,500 images of Comet Halley. Spacecraft operations were discontinued a few weeks after the Halley encounters.

The on-board TV system was created in international cooperation of the scientific and industrial facilities from the [[USSR]], [[People's Republic of Hungary|Hungary]], France, and [[Czechoslovakia]]. The TV data was processed by an international team, including scientists from the Soviet Union, Hungary, France, [[East Germany]], and the [[United States]]. The basic steps of data acquisition and preprocessing were performed in [[Russian Space Research Institute|IKI]] using an image processing computer system based on a [[PDP-11|PDP-11/40]] compatible host.

''Vega 1'' and ''Vega 2'' are currently in [[heliocentric orbit]]s.