1-154-871 - NASA/Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope, 1990. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was put into orbit from the Space Shuttle Discovery, mission STS-31 on 24 April 1990. HST is shown, still in the grasp of the shuttle's robot arm, with the earth in the background, during the deployment of the solar panels and antennae. HST was designed to see seven times further into space than had been possible before, without the distortion caused by the earth's atmosphere. Problems with its giant mirror meant that it did not initially work as well as expected. Corrective optics were installed in 1993, greatly improving the telescope's performance, enabling it to view the Universe in unprecedented detail.