First Servicing Mission

At 43.5 feet (13.2 meters) tall, the Hubble Space Telescope towers over space shuttle Endeavour's payload bay during the first mission to upgrade the telescope's systems in December 1993. The mission's most important objective was to fix Hubble's infamous vision problem. An incorrectly shaped primary mirror meant the telescope could not focus all the light from an object to a single sharp point, which left a fuzzy halo around images. Two devices that acted as corrective eyeglasses were installed, and a clear-seeing Hubble has been making remarkable cosmic discoveries ever since.