STS-31

STS-31 carried cargo unlike anything the Space Shuttle had launched before: the Hubble Space Telescope, a school-bus-sized observatory more than a decade in development, designed to see the universe with a clarity impossible from the ground, unobstructed by Earth's atmosphere. Getting it into orbit safely was itself a delicate operation.

Discovery launched on April 24, 1990, carrying Hubble in its payload bay along with a five-person crew commanded by Loren Shriver, with Charles Bolden as pilot and Steven Hawley among the mission specialists. The telescope, roughly the size of a large school bus and weighing over 24,000 pounds, represented one of the most expensive and scientifically ambitious payloads NASA had ever flown.

On the mission's second day, Hawley operated the Shuttle's robotic Canadarm to lift Hubble out of the payload bay and release it into its own independent orbit roughly 340 miles above Earth, well above the Shuttle's typical altitude, chosen specifically to minimize atmospheric drag and extend the telescope's operational life. The deployment went smoothly, and Discovery's crew watched as Hubble unfurled its solar panels and began its own decades-long mission.

What no one aboard Discovery knew yet was that Hubble's primary mirror had been ground with a microscopic flaw, a problem that would not become apparent until the telescope began returning blurry images weeks later. That discovery would eventually lead to one of the most famous repair missions in spaceflight history, but for the STS-31 crew, the mission itself was a complete success: Hubble was safely in orbit, and Discovery returned to a smooth landing at Edwards Air Force Base on April 29.

STS-31 launched what would become one of the most scientifically productive instruments ever built, delivering decades of groundbreaking astronomical images and data that reshaped humanity's understanding of the universe, from the age of the cosmos to the existence of exoplanets.

The mission also set the stage, unknowingly at the time, for one of the Shuttle program's most celebrated achievements: the 1993 servicing mission that corrected Hubble's flawed mirror, proving that the Shuttle's unique ability to visit and repair spacecraft in orbit had genuine, historic value.

Charles Bolden's role as pilot on STS-31 also foreshadowed his later career; he became NASA's twelfth Administrator in 2009, leading the agency during a pivotal transition period as the Shuttle program wound down and commercial spaceflight began to emerge.