The project to send two Vega spacecraft to Venus and on to Halley's comet was supported by Austria, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, West Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union. In addition, the United States contributed funds for tracking facilities. Vegas 1 and 2 were launched December 15 and 21, 1984. These spacecraft deployed capsules into the Venusian atmosphere on June 9 and 13, 1985. Each of these capsules included a baloon and a surface lander. The landers were similar to the Venera landers and were designed to analyze the atmosphere and soil samples. The balloons were released 54 km above the surface; they were to float in the atmosphere taking data for two days.
