History of The Hubble Telescope.
- 1923, Hermann Oberth, a German scientist, hypothesis that launching a telescope into earths orbit could help overcome distortions caused by the atmosphere. Due to major advancements into rocket technology Hermann's idea soon became more feasible.
- 1969, Approval was granted from the North American congress for the launch of a Large Space Telescope.
- 1975 , The European Space Agency began to work with NASA on the plan that would eventually become Hubble.
- 1977, North American Congress approved funding for the telescope. The creation of a new reusable Space Shuttle provided a new mechanism for delivering a telescope into space.
- NA, the Large Space Telescope was renamed the Hubble Telescope after Edwin Hubble, who determined that the universe existed beyond the border of the Milky Way.
- April 24, 1990, The worlds first space telescope was launched.
- NA, A flaw in a mirror was discovered when researchers observed that the images where blurry. The flaw was a spherical aberration caused by a manufacturing error. The flaw was only 1/50th thickness of a sheet of paper.
- December 1,1993, The space shuttle Endeavour carried a crew of seven astronauts to repair the mirror. Over 5 days of spacewalks two new camera where installed as well as the mirror being repaired. These new cameras would later go onto take some of Hubbles most famous pictures.
- 1993, The first Hubble pictures reached earth and amazed countless people.
- NA, between 1993 and 2009 the telescope was serviced 4 times. Astronauts had to replace batteries and direction gyroscopes among other minor problems.
- 2009, the final servicing of Hubble took place.
- 2018, The James Webb Space telescope will be launched in to orbit around Earth. Despite allot of misconceptions Hubble will not be taken out of service after the JWST is launched. Hubble will continue to study the universe until its inevitable destruction.