How do you repair Hubble in orbit without replacing its primary mirror? This illustrated documentary follows the tiny shape error behind the telescope’s first blur and the mission that corrected the light where the instruments could use it.
During five spacewalks, astronauts installed WFPC2, which corrected its own images, and COSTAR, which redirected corrected light to selected earlier instruments. The crew also replaced gyroscopes and solar hardware. Follow the diagnosis and mission planning, the first sharp WFPC2 image, a separate COSTAR-dependent test, and the months of checks that verified the repaired observatory’s systems.
The story then turns to Hubble’s later servicing missions and the serviceable design that let new instruments and renewed systems extend the observatory’s usefulness long after launch. The credited NASA/STScI M100 comparison appears only as a factual insert inside the film; it is not a controlled optical test.
Chapters:
00:00 The blur
01:48 What Hubble was built to do
04:32 One mirror, several foci
08:04 Finding the cause and designing the repair
12:46 STS-61: five spacewalks
21:55 The first sharp return
25:57 A repair becomes a program
28:35 The answer
Sources and further reading:
NASA — A Brief History of the Hubble Space Telescope: https://www.nasa.gov/history/hubble/
NASA Science — Servicing Mission 1: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/observatory/missions-to-hubble/servicing-mission-1/
NASA Science — Hubble Servicing Missions Timeline: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/hubble-timeline/hubble-servicing-missions-timeline-full-text/
NASA Technical Reports Server — Hubble Space Telescope: First Servicing Mission (1994): https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20060049142.pdf
NASA Technical Reports Server — Hubble Space Telescope Optical Systems Failure Report (1990): https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19910003124
NASA Science — The History of Hubble: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/the-history-of-hubble/
NASA Science — Hubble History Timeline: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/overview/hubble-timeline/hubble-history-timeline-full-text/
NASA Science — Hubble’s Mirror Flaw: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/observatory/design/optics/hubbles-mirror-flaw/
NASA / STScI — M100 old/new optics comparison: https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/pictures-of-galaxy-m100-with-hubbles-old-and-new-optics/
YouTube release scheduled for October 31 at 2:00 AM Toronto: https://youtu.be/ne-uU5S3fCY
Credits:
GreenSpacealien
Original research and script
Archive insert: NASA, STScI (M100 old/new optics comparison)
Full sources and credits accompany this video.
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