After many funding problems, a bunch of technical issues, an extreme delay caused by a Space Shuttle disaster (that traumatized almost half of U.S. school kids, including yours truly) and a sky-rocketing budget, on April 24, 1990, NASA finally launched the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit.
Hubble has had a somewhat difficult history. It was a very ambitious undertaking with a lot of moving parts that had to be precise to an extremely small degree. It had plenty of naysayers, and the cost overruns made it an easy target for jokes about NASA and budgets.
But the HST is an instrument that is going to significantly improve our abilities to look further into space than we've been able to, and we were going to get back some AMAZING pictures.
And then....
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| Credits: Left: E. Persson (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile) / Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Right: NASA, ESA and STScI |
The initial results were quite a bit underwhelming. The jokes took on a whole new life, even prompting Jay Leno to joke that Hubble should be shot down and put out of its misery. The project was a bust.
But fortunately, NASA has some pretty smart, persistent people working there. They realized that there was a problem with the mirror, and, since HST was designed to be manually serviced, they set out to do just that. It took a few space walks to get the mirror fully corrected, but after just the first fix in 1993, they got...
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| Spiral Galaxy M100 - Before/After 1st Fix Credits: NASA |
Hubble was working a lot better.
In the ensuing years, Hubble has been upgraded and significantly improved. It has made over a million impressive observations, made numerous discoveries, significantly increased our knowledge of our universe, given us stunning images to look at and sparked an interest in space. Hubble is a pretty impressive redemption story and has become an unimaginable success. Not too shabby for a project that was only supposed to last for 3 years.
The James Webb Space Telescope has some pretty large shoes to fill.
The James Webb Space Telescope has some pretty large shoes to fill.
Happy 30th "Birthday", Hubble!
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The Hubble Space Telescope, seen from the space shuttle
Discovery during the observatory's deployment
on April 25, 1990. (Image: © NASA)
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| Jupiter Moon Transit, January 24, 2015 (Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI) |
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| Hubble took this image, titled "Cosmic Reef," released April 24 to celebrate its 30th anniversary. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/STScI) |
And a big THANK YOU to NASA, the ESA, the Goddard Space Flight Center and everyone else involved with Hubble.
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