Marking 35 Years Since the First 'Great Observatory' Launched into Space...

NASA

Hubble Space Telescope Reaches Orbit (News Release)

On April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard space shuttle Discovery on the STS-31 mission. The mission featured the deployment of Hubble, the first of NASA's Great Observatories to reach orbit. STS-31 was the tenth launch of the orbiter Discovery.

On board were astronauts Charles F. Bolden (pilot and former NASA Administrator), Steven A. Hawley (mission specialist), Loren J. Shriver (commander), Bruce McCandless (mission specialist) and Kathryn D. Sullivan (mission specialist and former NOAA Administrator).

In this April 25, 1990 photograph (below) taken with a handheld Hasselblad camera, most of the giant Hubble Space Telescope can be seen as it is suspended in space by Discovery's Remote Manipulator System (RMS) following the deployment of part of its solar panels and antennae. This was among the first photos that NASA released on April 30 from the five-day STS-31 mission.

Source: NASA.Gov

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NASA