Editing Hubble Space Telescope (section)

=== ''Challenger'' disaster, delays, and eventual launch ===
[[File:STS-31 Hubble launch roll and pitch.jpg|thumb|upright|[[STS-31]] lifting off, carrying Hubble into orbit]]
[[File:1990 s31 IMAX view of HST release.jpg|thumb|Hubble being deployed from ''Discovery'' in 1990]]

By January 1986, the planned launch date for Hubble that October looked feasible, but the [[Space Shuttle Challenger disaster|''Challenger'' disaster]] brought the U.S. space program to a halt, grounded the Shuttle fleet, and forced the launch to be postponed for several years. During this delay the telescope was kept in a clean room, powered up and purged with nitrogen, until a launch could be rescheduled. This costly situation (about {{US$|6 million}} per month) pushed the overall costs of the project higher. However, this delay allowed time for engineers to perform extensive tests, swap out a possibly failure-prone battery, and make other improvements.{{sfn|Tatarewicz|1998|p=371}} Furthermore, the ground software needed to control Hubble was not ready in 1986, and was barely ready by the 1990 launch.<ref>{{cite news |title=Telescope Is Set to Peer at Space and Time |first=John |last=Wilford |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3D6153AF93AA35757C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |work=The New York Times |date=April 9, 1990 |access-date=January 19, 2009 |archive-date=November 11, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121111141710/http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/09/us/telescope-is-set-to-peer-at-space-and-time.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Following the resumption of shuttle flights, {{OV|Discovery}} successfully launched the Hubble on April 24, 1990, as part of the STS-31 mission.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-31/mission-sts-31.html |title=STS-31 |publisher=NASA |access-date=April 26, 2008 |archive-date=August 15, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110815191242/http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-31/mission-sts-31.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

At launch, NASA had spent approximately {{US$|4.7 billion}} in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars on the project.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/499224main_JWST-ICRP_Report-FINAL.pdf |title=James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Independent Comprehensive Review Panel (ICRP) Final Report |page=32 |publisher=NASA |access-date=April 7, 2022 |archive-date=November 17, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211117185346/https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/499224main_JWST-ICRP_Report-FINAL.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Hubble's cumulative costs are estimated to be about {{US$|11.3 billion}} in 2015 dollars, which include all subsequent servicing costs, but not ongoing operations, making it the most expensive science mission in NASA history.<ref>{{cite book |title=Powering Science: NASA's Large Strategic Science Missions |url=https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/24857/powering-science-nasas-large-strategic-science-missions |publisher=The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine |page=11, footnote 4 |doi=10.17226/24857 |date=2017 |isbn=978-0-309-46383-6 |access-date=April 7, 2022 |archive-date=April 21, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220421203447/https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/24857/powering-science-nasas-large-strategic-science-missions |url-status=live }}</ref>