The first spacecraft buzzed a comet today in 1985

Thirty years ago today, the International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 probe became the first spacecraft to fly by a comet. Launched in 1978, ISEE 3 spent several years loitering near Earth, investigating the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field. Renamed the International Cometary Explorer, or ICE, the probe took off for its comet encounter in 1983 and dove through the plasma tail of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner two years later. (Not content with visiting just one comet, ICE went on to check out comet 1P/Halley in 1986.)

On May 29 of last year, a crowdfunded team of comet enthusiasts successfully communicated with the spacecraft. They planned to park ICE in an orbit near Earth, but a lack of nitrogen to pressurize the fuel tanks prevented its engines from firing.

ICE stopped responding a little over a month after buzzing the moon in August 2014. The spacecraft now silently orbits the sun and won’t get swept up by Earth’s gravity again until 2029.