Pioneer
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Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to cross the asteroid belt on June 13, 1983 and fly by Jupiter, in the process discovering Jupiters' huge magnetic tail, an extension of the planet's magnetosphere.
Pioneer 11 or Pioneer-Saturn as it is also called flew by the planet Saturn September 1979, providing, in the process, valuable data for the identification of two additional rings around the planet and the presence of radiation belts within its magnetosphere.
Pioneer 11 or Venus-1 and Pioneer 12 or Venus-2, were sent to Venus and sent back valuable information about its' lower atmosphere and radar photographs revealing great mountains and valleys on the Venutian surface.
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Voyager
Voyager 1 and 2, were originally designed to study Jupiter and Saturn, but eventually both have gone out of our solar system to study interstellar space. Voyager 1(launched September 5, 1977) was the second of the two, but flew by Jupiter first in March 1979 and reached Saturn in November 1980, which made it take a trajectory to lead it out of the solar system. Voyager 2, launched on August 20, 1977, sped by Jupiter almost a year after its' twin on July 9, 1979, passing Saturn on August 25, 1981, and flew past Uranus on January 24, 1986, and encountered Neptune on August 24, 1989.
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Pictures from the two satellites showed a variety of cloud forms around Jupiter and volcanic activity on Io, one of its moons. Also, Saturn was found to have a system of several thousand "ringlets" in addition to its known rings. Voyager 2s' encounter with Uranus proved it to have 10 additional moons and a substantial magnetic field.
The Neptune flyby led to the discovery of three rings around it and six hitherto unknown satellites around the planet as well as a magnetic field, much like the Van Allen Radiation Belt around earth. The voyagers are supposed to be functional till 2020, uptil when, they will continue to transmit invaluable information about deep space travel.
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When the Halley's comet was at its' closest to the earth Soviet sent two probes called Vega 1 and 2 which dropped balloon-borne probes onto the Venutian surfave and proceed for a flyby of Halley's. The European Space Agency(ESA) launched the cometary probe Giotto(1985). Equipped with high-resolution cameras, Giotto produced detailed images of the Halley comet's coma and nucleus. Also in 1985 Japan launched two probes, one of which passed by Halley's Comet at a distance of only about 100,000 kilometres.
In 1989, the US launched Magellan in 1989, orbitting Venus in August 1990, it secured high-res radar images of over 90% of it's surface. It also produced a high quality map of Venus' topograhy with its' radar altimenter. Galileo(launched 1989), reaching Jupiter in December 1995, transmitted a large number of images and data of the planet, its' rings and its' satellites.
The US Mars Observer(launched in 1993) mission was a faliure as the ground lost control of the space craft before reaching its' destination. Another major US mission to Mars called Mars Pathfinder(1996) landed safely on the Martian surface and collected invaluable information.
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