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25 Years Ago: STS-103, The Hubble Servicing Mission-3A
- On December 19, 1999, the third servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) occurred during the STS-103 mission.
- The seven-member U.S. and European crew conducted three lengthy and complex spacewalks to service and upgrade the telescope.
- The astronauts restored the facility to full functionality and redeployed Hubble with greater capabilities than ever before.
- The discovery after launch in 1990 that its primary mirror suffered from a flaw called spherical aberration disappointed scientists who could not obtain sharp images.
- Thanks to Hubble's on-orbit servicing, NASA devised a plan to correct the telescope's optics during the first planned repair mission in 1993.
- A second servicing mission in 1997 upgraded the telescope's capabilities until the next mission planned for three years later.
- The third mission was split into missions 3A and 3B after three of the telescope's six gyroscopes failed in 1997, 1998, and 1999.
- During STS-103, the four astronauts in rotating teams of two conducted three lengthy and complex spacewalks.
- The Hubble Space Telescope continues to operate today, far exceeding the five-year life extension expected from the last of the servicing missions in 2009.
- Joined in space by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2021, the two instruments together continue to image the skies across a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
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