Vesta was a multiple-asteroid-flyby mission that the Soviet Union was planning in the 1980s. The Vesta mission would have consisted of two identical probes (just like earlier Soviet Venus missions), to be launched in 1991. Similar to the Vega program, each spacecraft would deploy one or more landers or balloons into the Venusian atmosphere, and then proceed to its next target. At Venus, a French satellite dedicated to asteroid flybys would be released. It would return to us for an Earth swing-by, and then reach about 3-3.3 AUs from the Sun.