Thirty years ago today, the Hubble Space Telescope was taken to orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery. It wasn't an easy road to space for the observatory, and NASA would shortly discover troubles with its primary mirror that would raise questions about whether it could ever live up to its initial promise. At one point, so many onboard gyroscopes had failed that scientific observations had to be stopped.
But Hubble was a rarity: a space-based telescope that was designed for servicing. Five missions over the course of its time in space have not only replaced critical hardware like batteries and pointing devices, but have completely replaced the onboard instrument suite with updated equipment. Five servicing missions have allowed Hubble to make contributions to countless discoveries—in many cases, the discoveries couldn't have been made without it.
Delays and defects
Hubble's successor in orbit, the James Webb Space Telescope, has been plagued with massive cost overruns. It's currently running over five years late for its planned launch, and costs have nearly quadrupled, getting so bad that Congress threatened to kill it a few years back. This might make you wonder why NASA couldn't get its act together the way it did on the Hubble.
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