Hubble Space Telescope: History, Design, and Discoveries
This paper traces the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) from its conceptual origins in Lyman Spitzer's 1946 proposal through its 1990 launch, the discovery of its spherical aberration flaw, and the 1993 repair mission that restored its full capability. The paper examines the engineering decisions behind the HST's primary mirror, optical system, and onboard instruments — including the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph and Faint Object Spectrograph — and explains how the telescope relays data to Earth via the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. It concludes by surveying landmark discoveries such as Supernova 1987A and the Eskimo Nebula, and discusses the uncertain future of the telescope's servicing missions.
- Introduction: Vision for a Space Telescope: Origins of HST concept and early proposals
- Engineering and Construction Challenges: Mirror design, optics, and instrument systems
- Launch, Spherical Aberration, and Repair: 1990 launch flaw discovered and 1993 fix
- Scientific Instruments and Data Relay: GHRS, FOS spectrographs and TDRSS satellites
- Major Discoveries from the HST: Nebulae, galaxies, and Supernova 1987A findings
- The Future of the Hubble Space Telescope: Servicing missions, robotic options, and legacy
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What makes this paper effective
- It balances technical detail — mirror grinding tolerances, focal lengths, CCD detector function — with accessible narrative, making complex engineering understandable to a general academic audience.
- The paper follows a clear chronological spine (proposal → construction → launch → failure → repair → discoveries → future), giving the reader a logical sense of progress and setback.
- Direct quotations from primary and secondary sources are used sparingly but purposefully, each one reinforcing a specific argumentative point rather than substituting for analysis.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates how to integrate technical description with evaluative argument. Rather than simply cataloguing features, the author consistently explains why design choices matter — for example, linking the lightweight honeycomb mirror construction to the weight constraints of shuttle launch — and situates each discovery within the broader claim that the HST has "expanded the possibilities that humankind is not alone in the universe."
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a motivating claim about the HST's cosmic significance, then moves through historical background (1946–1985), engineering challenges (mirror design, optical system, onboard instruments), the crisis of spherical aberration and its repair, a survey of post-repair discoveries, and a forward-looking conclusion about the telescope's uncertain but vital future. Each section builds on the previous one, making the structure cumulative rather than merely additive.
Introduction: Vision for a Space Telescope
As the world's first Earth-orbiting reflecting telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) represents the culmination of the dreams of many astronomers and the fulfillment of a hope that began in the 1950s, when the United States launched instruments into space to study the Earth's atmosphere. Our planetary speck in space — namely, the Earth — is only one of hundreds of billions of planets that surely orbit other star systems; our Milky Way galaxy, composed of billions of stars and other astronomical bodies, is but one of billions of other galaxies. In order to increase our knowledge of the universe, the Hubble Space Telescope serves a vital function: since its launch in 1990, despite several crucial problems, it has revealed a universe full of mysterious bodies, nebulae, star systems, and galaxies, and has expanded the possibilities that humankind is not alone in the universe.
The first scientific idea for a telescope such as the HST came about in 1946 when Lyman Spitzer issued a proposal for a space telescope with a primary mirror between sixteen and fifty feet in diameter. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with the ultraviolet observatories OAO-2, OAO-3, and the IUE in the planning stages, the space telescope remained only a dream due to the lack of technology. Yet Spitzer did not give up; by the 1970s he had offered another proposal for a space telescope that would be able to provide images of very faint objects, in contrast to ground-based telescopes, which suffer from distortion caused by the Earth's atmosphere. According to Spitzer, such a telescope would not "supplement our present ideas of the universe we live in, but rather would uncover new phenomena not yet imagined and perhaps would modify profoundly our basic concepts of space and time" (42).
As the years passed, many astronomers came to understand that such an instrument would provide new opportunities for the present and for the future. In 1965, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report focusing on the construction of a space-based telescope. In 1970, the NAS convened an Astronomy Survey Committee and placed responsibility on the California Institute of Technology to set priorities for the telescope's construction. Between 1973 and 1977, the Space Telescope Working Group was formed to discuss the project in detail and to ensure that the space telescope contained the best instruments possible within certain budgetary and design restrictions.
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