The space race had only two competitors – America and the USSR – until Japan decided to join in. To test out their own spaceflight engineering research and gather some information on nearby passing Halley’s comet, Japan outfitted a working Suisei model with three instruments to measure solar winds, magnetic activity, and plasma waves.

On this day, January 7th, 1985 the Japanese spacecraft took off to rendezvous with Halley’s comet. The name Sakigake, given to the craft only after its launch, meant “pioneer” or “pathfinder.”

The Sakigake probe passed within 4.3 million miles of Halley’s comet, maneuvering several times into different positions around it, before swinging back towards earth. It continued to transmit information for ten years and two more earth fly-bys before telemetry was lost in November of 1995.