CoProG

SoProG (SOUTH PROGRAM on Halley's comet research) is the Soviet program for the mass observations of Halley's comet in 1986 return, conducted both to determine its exact coordinates ( astrometry ) and to study physical characteristics ( astrophysics ). The initiator of this program was GAO NASU . It was carried out in 1983 - 1987 . Yaroslav Stepanovich Yatskiv led this program. Meetings on this program were held in the city of Chernigov . 1986 was declared the International Year of Comet Halley. 22 astronomical institutions of the USSR took part in this program. Over 1000 astrometric measurements of the comet were published, which amounted to about 50% of the total number of positions recorded in the world, which made it possible to implement the international project “Pilot” . These observations helped coordinate the work of the missions of the automatic interplanetary stations Vega-1 and Vega-2 , which successfully carried out the capture of the nucleus of Comet Halley from a short distance. Simultaneously with ground-based observations, studies of the comet were also carried out using the Astron space observatory.