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After Hubble’s deployment in 1990.
Astronomers quickly realized there was a problem.

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The conclusion we've come to from
that is that there is a significant

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spherical aberration
appears to be present in the optics.

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...and that we should be able to fix it
in our insurance program.

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So when we were on
the first service mission,

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that was like make it or break it,
you know, if we didn't

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get it going, get it fixed,
it was not good for NASA.

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There was talk about it
being make or break it

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for the International Space Station.

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If you can't fix a telescope,
you can't build a space station.

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You know, vitally important that we do
what had to be done and get it done.

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Liftoff.

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Liftoff of the Space

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Shuttle Endeavour on an ambitious mission
to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

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The hard part of getting ready to launch
is saying goodbye to your family.

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So we went in quarantine
a week before flight.

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Couldn't see our children
after that point.

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Could see our spouses up
until the day before.

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Once you said goodbye for me,
it was like being on autopilot.

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You know, I trained to do this.
I'm going to do this.

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And I remember
standing out on the launch tower

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and looking around at the ocean
and the beach and all that,

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trying to soak it up and thinking,
I wonder if this is my last day on Earth.

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Just kind of matter of factly because

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somebody's going to get hurt, but
probably not me and probably not today.

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Liftoff is is not like somebody kicks
you in the back.

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It's more like this firm unrelenting push.

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It starts up.

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It's a lot of vibrations
in the first stage when the solids

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were still burning,
and then after they separated,

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it gets really smooth
like an electric cart ride.

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Acceleration builds
up to like three Gs toward

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the end of ascent to feel heavy
smashed into your seat.

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And then when the main engines cut off,
you go from like having a gorilla

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sitting on your chest.
Everything floats, like in a heartbeat.

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That’s kind of a magical moment.

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You go, wow, we're here!

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I think most people, when they first stick

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their head out to do a spacewalk,
the overwhelming

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feeling or thought is, please,
God, don't let me screw this up,

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because the whole world is watching.

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Everything you say is on air to ground.

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“And I've got to go.

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It's slewing KT. You're doing that?”

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“I’m not touching it.”

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“Okay, let me get stabilized.”

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You have to mind language and not say
things you don't want your mother to hear.

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“You got a handle in it?”

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“I got a handle in it.”

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It's not that you're going to get hurt.

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It's that you mess up something
because it's

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just so important to get it right,
but the time goes by so fast.

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Even though we're moving 
excruciatingly slowly.

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And if you're watching this on video,
you fall asleep in the middle of it.

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But to us, the time
just went by really, really fast.

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I think we melded really well.

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I mean, everybody had their job to do

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and they knew that
everybody was cross-trained.

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We went out into the cargo bay
to do a spacewalk.

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We had all the tools we needed to do
any task assigned

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to the whole mission,
not just the one for our day.

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So if we got in trouble with something,

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we could drop that and we'd go
do something else and still be productive.

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So we did an enormous amount across
training and everything.

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On the day that you go out

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to roll up the solar panels,
the old ones, they don't roll up.

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You said you got several people.

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You said you’ve got several options of things
you can do. What what can you do

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if those pesky solar panels don't work
again, as you try to retract them?

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If they don't retract,

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then our plan
is to put a grapple fixture on them.

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Let the arm grab them
and hold them overboard out of our way

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and we'll install the new solar arrays
when they are checked out.

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Then we'll jettison the old ones.

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The way the solar arrays are 
supposed to roll up.

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And they had to for us to bring them home
because we had a place for them

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to be stowed.

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And if they didn't fit there, we couldn't
bring them home.

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And so the way they operate
is that the bi-stems,

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the support on the side
that extends it and pulls it back is like

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two pieces of metal
that curl up on itself.

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When you extend it out of the canister
like a metal tape measure.

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So one is one way
and the other curls around it.

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So that was the bi-stem.

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So when we went to retract
the one that didn't roll up,

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we could see that one piece of that
bi-stem was longer than the other.

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Somehow it had slipped.

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“There is a definite kink

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right at the

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upper edge of the second panel

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there, as you can see in the max
part of the bend.”

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We knew by looking at it at that point
it was not going to roll up.

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So we knew the night before
that we were going to do a jettison

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the next day. I was holding it
and I just took my hands off of it.

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And at some point the jet plumes hit it

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and it started flapping like this
giant bird.

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And we were over the Red Sea
and the Gulf of Aden, the deserts.

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And it was like this pterodactyl
cruising out there over the deserts.

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And I had the best view in the universe.

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It just it just riveted my attention
to it, just watching it.

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And I remember saying, Tom,
that looks like a bird.

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Of the four spacewalkers,
we all knew what everybody was doing.

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We knew how to do what the guy out
there is doing.

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And so we could maybe see things.

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Claude Nicollier was incredible on the arm.

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He would move it
and sort of relieve stresses and strains

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that we don't even mention to him.

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He would just see,
you know what that looks like.

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It's a little uncomfortable.

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And he just tweaked the arm a little bit
and get you to the right place.

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And when I was installing COSTAR,
I was holding it.

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But the only thing I could see in front of
my face was silver.

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I mean, I had no notion of anything
going on around me.

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So my job was to be a rigid body,
and he's the one who actually drove that

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In for the most part,

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Tom would give me some clues about pitch
up, you know, roll a little bit.

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But mostly it was Claude
that, as long as I stayed rigid,

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he could put it in there,
he could drive it in.

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And we had clearances that were really
small getting in the two guide rails.

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Every time we stuck in an instrument
or did something

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the ground would command it
and we'd see the power was on

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and that it was sending data.

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So before we landed, in fact, by the time
we finished the fifth spacewalk,

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we knew that everything that we could do
had been done correctly.

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But, you know, unless it worked,
then nobody was successful.

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It doesn't matter
that what we could do had been done right.

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If it didn't work,
then the whole team was not a success.

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And so it wasn't quite the
let your hair down

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celebrate
when we got home, that that didn't happen

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until after we saw the images in January
coming back.

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The images are incredibly gorgeous.

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They're just, they're art.
They're just beauty.

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And I just sort of revel in that
every time I get to see one.

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Even now. Oh, they're just amazing.

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Hubble, I think, was the most incredible invention
since Galileo

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and the telescope
as far as astronomy and astrophysics.

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Hubble has generated data
that generations of scientists

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are going to be still looking at,
still analyzing.

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It's just generated tons
and tons of stuff.

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More discoveries will be made after
Hubble is done

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because the data will still be there.

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I feel personally connected to the Hubble
because my oldest daughter

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was 11 years old when we launched on that
and she got her PhD.

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in astrophysics using Hubble data.

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Her dissertation director got his PhD.

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using Hubble data

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and dedicated his dissertation
to the astronauts who fixed Hubble.

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So I feel like it's partly mine.

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“Okay, KT you ready?”

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“Yeah I’m ready!”

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“They say you got to go for release.”

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“Ok, no hands!”

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“Look how stable you left that.

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There it goes!

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Pretty neat job KT!”

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“Almost like a bird Tom, look at it!”

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[ MUSIC ]

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Servicing Mission 1 had five spacewalks.
Kathy Thornton participated in two of them.

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After installing corrective optics, 
Hubble had a clear view of the cosmos.

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Thirty years later, Hubble continues making discoveries 
that change our understanding of the universe.

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“Follow us on social media @NASAHubble”