HST: mission and targets

Project start

April 8, 1990

Declared end

not declared

The start the archive declares is the start of the project, not the launch, and an end it does not declare does not mean the mission is still running.

Targets you can open in 3D:

• Pluto
• Jupiter
• Mars
• Mercury
• Neptune
• Saturn
• Uranus
• Venus
• Dione
• Enceladus
• Hyperion
• Mimas
• Rhea
• Tethys
• Titan

A declared target is what the archive files the mission’s data under, not a record of observation.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a cooperative program of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to operate a long-lived space-based observatory for the benefit of the international astronomical community. HST is an observatory first dreamt of in the 1940s, designed and built in the 1970s and 80s, and launched in the 1990s. HST was designed to be a different type of mission for NASA: a permanent space-based observatory. HST is a 2.4-meter, f/24 Ritchey-Chretien reflecting telescope capable of performing observations in the visible, near-ultraviolet, and near-infrared. It was deployed in low-Earth orbit (600 kilometers altitude) by the crew of the space shuttle Discovery (STS-31) on 25 April 1990. It was visited by astronauts for servicing missions five times, most recently in 2009.

Quoted in English, as the archive publishes it, read on October 4, 2026.

• Epimetheus (satellite)
• Helene (satellite)
• Janus (satellite)
• Pandora (satellite)
• Prometheus (satellite)

Identifier in the archive, which is its citation: urn:nasa:pds:context:investigation:mission.hst

NASA Planetary Data System, PDS Registry, investigation context products. Dates and targets read on September 29, 2026; how to cite the archive: https://pds.nasa.gov/datastandards/citing/

All missions