I decided to look up a bit of space history today. I was reading some comet stuff (inspired by Comet Machholz) and the name of a space probe "Vega" came up. This was a Soviet Union probe that went to Venus and then on to visit Halley's comet. It seems that the mission was an overall success. One thing that can be noted about scientific missions to Halley's comet is that there has not been one NASA probe to this object. Back in the mid 1980s the USSR, Japan and Europe sent craft to intercept it. While researching the Vega space probe I came across an absolutely wonderful website of the topic of Soviet exploration of Venus: http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm.
This has an astonishing amount of material and is very informative and in my opinion very interesting. If you ever wanted to know about past Soviet spacecraft then I would highly recommend this site.
I also came across some interesting stamps produced by the USSR about Vega: http://www.iki.rssi.ru/ssp/vstamps.html. I think I may even have a few of these!
More:
+ Soviet Exploration of Venus - http://www.mentallandscape.com/V_Venus.htm
+ Comet Halley - http://www.solarviews.com/eng/halley.htm
+ NASA Stardust Vega I & II - http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/comets/vega.html
+ Vega Stamps - http://www.iki.rssi.ru/ssp/vstamps.html
+ Comet Machholz - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2004_12_15.php#000462
