science · 25 December 1999 · 25 years ago
In 1999, space shuttle Discovery's astronauts finished their mainenance work on the Hubble Space Telescope, installing correcting optics to repair problems due to a design flaw in the mirror. The first images the Hubble Telescope took after its original launch were disappointingly fuzzy, but after this repair mission the instrument returned crisp images of a clarity never before possible from terrestrial observatories.