The Hubble Space Telescope
Revealing All the Secrets of the Universe
The Development and Launch
of the Hubble Space Telescope
The Development and Launch
of the Hubble Space Telescope
The development and launch of the Hubble Space Telescope happened part by part. NASA chose different contractors for different jobs. The Marshall Space Flight Center was chosen to be the lead for design, development, and construction; The Goddard Space Flight Center for scientific instrument design and ground control; and the Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center helped with space shuttles (Hille).
NASA (NASA)
A schematic of the Hubble Space Telescope (NASA)
The Marshall Space Flight Center chose the Perkin-Elmer Corporation for the development of Optical Telescope Assembly, OTA; and the Fine Guidance Sensors, FGS. The OTA is an instrument used in conjunction with the primary and secondary mirrors to collect and analyze infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. The FGS is a system of multiple sensors used to accurately measure the Hubble Space Telescope's position by using specific stars as guides to gauge the distance from the system it is supposed to observe. The Lockheed Missiles and Space Company was also chosen to develop the exterior and the Support System Modules, which consists of the computer, communication, pointing, power, and control systems (Garner [FGS], Hille).
The Goddard Space Flight Center split themselves into instrument definition groups to transform ideas into scientific instruments for the Hubble Space Telescope. Prototypes were made and ideas were scrapped until the groups decided on five scientific instruments to be implemented into the telescope's housing: The Faint Object Camera, FOC; Wide Field/Planetary Camera, WFC; Faint Object Spectrometer, FOS; High-Resolution Spectrograph, HRS; and the High-Speed Photometer (Garner [Optics], Hille).
Another schematic of the Hubble Space Telescope, although more recent. (NASA)
An image of the Discovery, the space shuttle that
delivered the Hubble into orbit. (National Air and Space Museum)
With the instruments chosen and made for Hubble Space Telescope, there was only one thing left to develop. As the telescope was designed with maintenance in mind, there needed to be a way for something to go up to orbit and return safely multiple times. With this idea in mind, NASA and its contractors developed a vehicle that would later be known as the Space Shuttle (Hille).
By 1985, everything was ready for the Hubble Space Telescope to be launched into space aboard a space shuttle named the Discovery. Unfortunately, one year later, the space shuttle Challenger suffered a horrific explosion that killed all crew aboard. This incident caused NASA to freeze any new launches of space shuttles for the next two years. During this hiatus, the people working on the Hubble Space Telescope project used the extra time to enhance the telescope’s solar panels, aft shroud, and internal systems. Four years after when the original launch would have happened, the Discovery containing the Hubble Space Telescope launched on April 24, 1990 (Hille).