Giotto

Giotto was a European robotic spacecraft built for the European Space Agency to study Halley's Comet, and in March 1986 it became the first spacecraft to make close observations of a comet, passing the nucleus at a distance of 596 kilometres. British Aerospace was the prime contractor and built the cylindrical probe at Filton near Bristol, about 1.87 metres across and 2.85 metres long, with a layered aluminium and Kevlar dust shield to survive impacts from cometary particles. It was launched on an Ariane 1 rocket from Kourou in French Guiana on 2 July 1985, survived particle hits that knocked it off its spin axis, and went on to fly past comet Grigg-Skjellerup in July 1992 before it was switched off.