Trouble with Hubble: 4. Once in human history

The 1993 STS-61 mission represented a critical turning point for NASA, as the agency attempted a high-stakes rescue of the Hubble Space Telescope after its main mirror was ground to the wrong shape. With the future of space astronomy hanging in the balance, a veteran crew of seven astronauts executed five days of unprecedented extravehicular activity to install the COSTAR corrective optics and the Wide Field Planetary Camera. This daring repair mission successfully restored Hubble’s vision, allowing it to capture groundbreaking images like the Hubble Deep Field. These observations fundamentally altered scientific understanding, revealing that galaxies formed much earlier than previously theorized and confirming that the universe contains billions of potentially habitable planets. By overcoming a near-catastrophic failure, the mission transformed Hubble into the cornerstone of modern astronomy and provided profound insights into the origins and scale of the cosmos.