The most expensive space mission in history is a space shuttle orbiter, the Hubble Space Telescope.
It was built to be the first mission in human history to see distant planets and galaxies.
In fact, it was designed so that it could never do that.
And yet, despite being a very expensive mission, it’s been able to provide stunning images of the Universe, including the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way, and a whole bunch of other distant objects.
In terms of sheer cost, the mission is also arguably the most important in the history of science.
In addition to providing breathtaking views of the Galaxy, Hubble has helped us understand how the Universe works, and how galaxies form and evolve.
And it’s also helped us better understand our place in the Universe.
The spacecraft was built in the 1960s, with funding from the US government.
The space shuttle mission has been operating for more than a decade and was originally slated to retire in 2033.
But the government pulled the plug on it, and the program was restarted in 2013.
But, as we know, the shuttle is now a long way off from that date, and it won’t be ready until the early 2030s.
So the Hubble mission will continue to operate for another decade or so, and will have a life of some 60 years or so.
Here are five things you need not to know.
1.
It’s a very big mission.
It has been the most costly spacecraft in human spaceflight history, at over $7 billion.
The total cost of the mission was $7.9 billion.
That includes everything from the launch of the Hubble to the actual mission itself.
The mission was originally scheduled to retire by 2031, but NASA is looking to keep it operational for a bit longer.
2.
It had to fly at least three times.
The first launch of Hubble took place in April 1978, and then it would be the last mission of the Space Shuttle program.
In January 2009, it had to carry out an operational mission, and in April 2015, it would have to do a flyby of a supermassive black hole.
The third and final launch of that mission is slated for the early 2020s.
The final flight of the spacecraft is set for 2025.
3.
The launch pad is located in the Nevada desert.
The base for Hubble is located on the Nevada Test and Training Range in Las Vegas, which is not far from the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.
4.
The flight of Hubble was a huge engineering feat.
Engineers from the University of Colorado at Boulder built the rocket, spacecraft, and control center for the launch, which took place at the Kennedy Space Center.
There was an enormous amount of detail in the design of the rocket and its payload.
It took engineers about a year to build the entire rocket, and they had to take the engine out to an area where it was cool, dry, and completely sealed.
Once the engine was in place, the crew had to sit inside the rocket while the engines were running.
The entire flight was simulated by engineers at the University’s Flight Research Laboratory in Boulder, and engineers used all the tricks they knew to simulate a flight of this magnitude.
5.
The Hubble mission is only one of a number of missions that will launch in the 2030s and beyond.
Another mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in 2019.
This is a satellite that will be able to look back at our Solar System and see galaxies in a whole new way.
Other missions will include the NASA Mars 2020 rover, the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), the Advanced Very Large Telescope (VLT), the Mars Exploration Rover (MER), and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
In the early 2021s, the first Mars lander will be launched to the Red Planet.
And by the end of 2021, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars rover will be sending back images of Mars.
All of this will provide amazing images of Earth that we can’t even imagine today.