This Week in NASA History: Hubble Space Telescope Deployed — April 25, 1990

This week in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from the cargo bay of space shuttle Discovery as part of STS-31. Inside the spacecraft for STS-31 were astronauts Loren J. Shriver, Charles F. Bolden (NASA Administrator 2009-2017), Bruce McCandless II, Kathryn D. Sullivan and Steven A. Hawley.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center was responsible for the design, development, and construction of the Hubble Space Telescope and has played a significant role in the testing of Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope. Scheduled to launch in October 2018, the Webb telescope will observe the most distant objects in the universe, provide images of the first galaxies formed and see unexplored planets around distant stars.

The NASA History Program is responsible for generating, disseminating, and preserving NASA’s remarkable history and providing a comprehensive understanding of the institutional, cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and scientific aspects of NASA’s activities in aeronautics and space. For more pictures like this one and to connect to NASA’s history, visit the Marshall History Program’s webpage.