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Space Shuttle Endeavour / OV-105 | STS-61

STS-61

Launch Successful

Launch Details

Date: 2 Dec 1993, 09:27 am UTC

Rocket: Space Shuttle

Provider: Lockheed Space Operations Company

Mission

Type: Astrophysics

Orbit: Low Earth Orbit

Pad: Launch Complex 39B, Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Mission Description

STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission launched on 2 December 1993 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission restored the spaceborne observatory's vision, marred by spherical aberration, with the installation of a new main camera and a corrective optics package. This correction occurred more than three and a half years after the Hubble was launched aboard STS-31 in April 1990. The flight also brought instrument upgrades and new solar arrays to the telescope.