Hubble Space Telescope celebrates 25th anniversary of launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL (KGO) -- What better way to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's quarter-century in orbit than with cosmic fireworks?
On Thursday - one day before the 25th anniversary of Hubble's launch - NASA released an image taken by the space telescope showing a brilliant breeding ground for stars. This stellar nursery is 20,000 light-years from Earth in the Constellation Carina. NASA's science mission chief John Grunsfeld says the fact that it's taken thousands of years for the light from these bright, young stars to reach us means "they planned really far in advance."
Grunsfeld was among five former shuttle astronauts who flew on Hubble missions, who attended a Washington ceremony. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden also was there; he helped deliver Hubble to orbit on April 24, 1990.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then since the day of the launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has written an encyclopedia.
"The images have become a cultural icon, found on coffee cups, record albums and even tattoos," said Kathy Flanagan of the Space Telescope Science Institute.
"Hubble Space Telescope is the single greatest scientific instrument of all time," said Buddy Nelson, a space program analyst.
That from a man who worked on the program for 20 years. Hubble was assembled in Silicon Valley at a facility run by Lockheed Martin.
"This was the largest clean room ever built. They had to wear what we call bunny suits where they were completely covered from head to toe," Nelson said.
Once astronauts released the telescope into space it turned out dust wasn't the problem.
"Immediately after the launch they realized that there was something wrong," Nelson said.
The pictures were blurry. The very edge of the telescope's giant mirror had been ground at the wrong angle. Another Bay Area lab came to the rescue by building the telescope a set of robotic eyeglasses.
"Little arms came off of this instrument, went up into the optical light path and put little corrective lenses in front of all of the instruments that required them," Nelson said.
Astronauts trained for hundreds of hours to service the telescope in space. They took models up on the shuttle and used them to plan their spacewalks, but with the shuttle now retired Hubble is on its own. The astronauts left it with fresh batteries, motors and insulation, so it can keep sending stunning images back to earth.
"It looks like it's going to be OK for another 10 years or so," Nelson said, "And cross your fingers, maybe it'll be a little bit longer than that."
If you want to see those Hubble images in 3D, the Hubble 3D movie is playing at the Tech Museum in San Jose to mark the space telescope's anniversary. Click here for show times at the Tech Museum. Click here for details on the film. Click here to find showtimes near you.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
