HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by the space shuttle in April 1990. It is named after the American astronomer Edwin Hubble.

The HST is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The Hubble is the only telescope ever designed to be serviced in space by astronauts. There have been five servicing missions, the last occurring in May 2009. Servicing Mission 1 took place in December 1993 when Hubble's imaging flaw was corrected. Servicing missions 2, 3A, and 3B repaired various sub-systems and replaced many of the observing instruments.STS-125 was launched in May 2009, and installed two new instruments and made numerous repairs. Assuming testing and calibration of the new equipment goes well, the Hubble should resume routine operation in September 2009.

telescope to function until at least 2014, when its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is due to be launched. The JWST will be far superior to Hubble for many astronomical research programs.

Another similar effort is the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, launched on May 14, 2009. Like JWST, Herschel has a mirror substantially larger than the Hubble, but observes only in the infrared.It was launched with Plank spacecraft.

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