24 April 1990: The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low Earth orbit by the Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103, mission STS-31); namesake of astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), the main mirror was ground from 1979-1981, originally aiming for a 1983 launch & a fifteen-year-long mission; operations might continue into the 2030s; Hubble's astronomical discoveries have been seminal.
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