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307 records
Snapshot 2026-09-06
Active filters: comet
Open the explorerNo single body answers to the comet filter, so the explorer opens without one. Not carried: comet.
Launched 2025
Active missionChina's active Tianwen-2 mission launched on 29 May 2025 from Xichang on a Long March 3B Y110. It has begun scientific exploration of asteroid 2016 HO3; the mission plans to return an asteroid sample to Earth before continuing to main-belt comet 311P.
Launched 2005
Completed · SuccessNASA's Deep Impact delivered a special impactor into the path of Tempel 1. Deep Impact was redirected toward Comet 103P/Hartley (Hartley 2).
Launched 2004
Completed · SuccessESA's Rosetta was the first mission to rendezvous with a comet, the first to follow one around the Sun, and the first to deploy a lander to a comet's surface. Launched 2 March 2004 on an Ariane 5 G+ from Kourou, it used three Earth gravity assists and one Mars gravity assist, flew past asteroids Steins and Lutetia, hibernated for 31 months, and arrived at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 6 August 2014. It released the Philae lander on 12 November 2014 and ended with a controlled descent onto the comet on 30 September 2016.
Launched 2002
Failed · FailureNASA's CONTOUR was built to study and compare the interiors of two to three comets. Contact with the spacecraft was lost after an engine burn.
Launched 1999
Completed · SuccessNASA's Stardust returned samples from comet P/Wild 2, flew past asteroid 5535 Annefrank, and later revisited Comet Tempel 1 as Stardust/NExT.
Launched 1998
Completed · SuccessNASA's first New Millennium Program technology-demonstration probe flew past asteroid 9969 Braille in 1999 and comet Borrelly in 2001.
Launched 1985
Completed · SuccessSuisei was launched into heliocentric orbit to fly by Comet P/Halley and encountered it in 1986.
Launched 1985
Completed · SuccessESA's Giotto made comet encounters at Halley in 1986 and Grigg-Skjellerup in 1992.
Launched 1985
Lost · SuccessSakigake is a test spacecraft that flew by Comet P/Halley on its sunward side in 1986.
Launched 1984
Completed · SuccessA Soviet spacecraft mission that combined a Venus swingby, including dropping off a lander and balloon, and a Comet Halley flyby, flown six days behind the identical Vega 1. After deploying the descent module the Vega 2 bus flew by Venus on June 15, 1985 and was retargetted using Venus gravity field assistance to intercept Comet Halley in March 1986. Its lander probe, identical to those of Venera 9 through 14, touched down in eastern Aphrodite Terra, where the surface sample was found to be an anorthosite-troctolite, while a constant-pressure instrumented balloon aerostat floated in the middle, most active layer of the Venus three-tiered cloud system and transmitted directly to Earth.
Launched 1984
Completed · SuccessA Soviet spacecraft mission that combined a Venus swingby, including dropping off a lander and balloon, and a Comet Halley flyby. The Vega 1 bus released the Venus entry package on June 9, 1985 and flew by Venus at a distance of 39,000 km two days later, and was then retargetted using Venus gravity field assistance to intercept Comet Halley in March 1986. Its lander probe, identical to those of Venera 9 through 14, touched down just north of eastern Aphrodite Terra and transmitted data for 56 minutes from the surface, while a constant-pressure instrumented balloon aerostat deployed from the upper heat protection hemisphere floated in the middle, most active layer of the Venus three-tiered cloud system and transmitted directly to Earth.
Launched 1978
Completed · SuccessThe spacecraft traversed the plasma tail of Comet Giacobini-Zinner and transited between the Sun and Comet Halley in 1986.