STS-61

Richard O. Covey

• Birthday: 08/01/1946
• Role: Commander
• Nationality: United States of America
• First Flight: 08/27/1985
• Last Flight: 12/02/1993

Richard Oswalt Covey is a retired United States Air Force officer and former NASA astronaut.

Ken Bowersox

• Birthday: 11/14/1956
• Role: Pilot
• Nationality: United States of America
• First Flight: 06/25/1992
• Last Flight: 11/24/2002

Kenneth Dwane "Sox" Bowersox is a United States Navy officer, and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five ...

Claude Nicollier

• Birthday: 09/02/1944
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: Switzerland
• First Flight: 07/31/1992
• Last Flight: 12/20/1999

Claude Nicollier is the first astronaut from Switzerland. He has flown on four Space Shuttle missions. His first spaceflight ...

Kathryn C. Thornton

• Birthday: 08/17/1952
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: United States of America
• First Flight: 11/23/1989
• Last Flight: 10/20/1995

Kathryn Ryan Cordell Thornton is an American scientist and a former NASA astronaut with over 975 hours in space, including 21...

Thomas Akers

• Birthday: 05/20/1951
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: United States of America
• First Flight: 10/06/1990
• Last Flight: 09/16/1996

Thomas Dale Akers is a former American astronaut in NASA's Space Shuttle program.

Jeffrey Hoffman

• Birthday: 11/02/1944
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: United States of America
• First Flight: 04/12/1985
• Last Flight: 02/22/1996

Jeffrey Alan Hoffman is an American former NASA astronaut and currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. H...

Story Musgrave

• Birthday: 08/19/1935
• Role: Mission Specialist
• Nationality: United States of America
• First Flight: 04/04/1983
• Last Flight: 11/19/1996

Franklin Story Musgrave, M.D. is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is a public speaker[2] and consultant...

Mission

STS-61

• Type: Astrophysics
• Orbit: Low Earth Orbit
• Launch Cost: $450,000,000

STS-61 was the first Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, and the fifth flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission launched on 2 December 1993 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission restored the spaceborne observatory's vision, marred by spherical aberration, with the installation of a new main camera and a corrective optics package. This correction occurred more than three and a half years after the Hubble was launched aboard STS-31 in April 1990. The flight also brought instrument upgrades and new solar arrays to the telescope.

Location

Launch Complex 39B

Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

Find the best place to watch the launch from Florida

Launch Complex 39B has witnessed the launch of 58 rockets, including 57 orbital launch attempts. While Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, has been the site for 257 rocket launches.

The John F. Kennedy Space Center, located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of NASA's ten field centers. Since 1968, KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of American spaceflight, research, and technology. Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS).

Rocket

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). Five complete Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles were built and flown on a total of 135 missions from 1981 to 2011.

Learn more about the Space Shuttle