Soon after launch, everyone thought Hubble was a bust – and an expensive bust too.
“The instrument bore a seemingly fatal and irreparable manufacturing flaw that would severely degrade or even scuttle its fifteen-year mission,” NASA recounts.
Or to be more specific, the pictures were blurry. “Worse, various other systems and components began to act erratically or to fail.” A planned servicing mission turned into a rescue mission.
How bad was it? In a word: dreadful.
In the article, “The Trouble with the Hubble,” July 1, 1990, The New York Times reported that the $1.5 billion space telescope would be out of commission until 1993 or longer.
With Hubble already in orbit, scientists planned a fix-it project .
Parts would have to be replaced. The complex mission required 11 months of training, according to the website Hubblesite.org.
NASA released the first new images on January 13, 1994. “The pictures were beautiful; their resolution, excellent,” the website recounted.
Once the telescope was fixed, it literally opened new corners of the universe.
Every 97 minutes, the Hubble orbits the Earth. It moves at a speed of 5 miles per second. At that speed, Hubble could travel across the United States in 10 minutes, according to Hubblesite.org. It has spotted comets, seen vapor off one of Jupiter's moons, found newly formed planets and more.
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