How Astronauts Fixed Hubble's Blurry Mirror in Space (Real Footage + 3D)

In April 1990 NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope, a 13-metre observatory with a 2.4-metre mirror polished at Perkin-Elmer and a spacecraft built by Lockheed. Within weeks the first images showed a problem: the mirror's edge was about 2.2 microns too flat, because one lens in the tool used to test its shape sat 1.3 mm out of place. Using real NASA photos, archive footage and a 3D model, we follow the build, the launch on Discovery, and how a precise mistake became one of the most famous fixes in engineering history. We look at COSTAR, the phone-booth-sized box of fold-out mirrors that gave Hubble 'glasses', the new camera with its own correction, and the five spacewalks of STS-61 in December 1993. Then come the before-and-after images of galaxy M100, four more servicing missions up to 2009, the Columbia disaster that almost ended them, and where Hubble stands today: more than 36 years in orbit, running on a single gyroscope. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:35 Above the air 1:21 Polishing the mirror 2:34 Launch 3:16 The blur 4:21 Glasses for a telescope 5:21 The repair: STS-61 6:49 The proof 7:35 Four more visits 8:51 Hubble today 📚 Sources NASA Science, "Hubble's Mirror Flaw" NASA Science, "Servicing Mission 1" NASA, "STS-61" mission page NASA Science, "Servicing Mission 4" NASA, "A NASA Refresher on Hubble Facts for the 25th Anniversary" (2015) ESA/Hubble, "Fact sheet" NASA / ESA, Hubble 35th anniversary (April 2025) Wikipedia, "Hubble Space Telescope" (accessed 2026-10-25) Wikipedia, "STS-31" Wikipedia, "Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement" 📷 Photo credits (author · license) are shown on each photo in the video. (Wikimedia Commons · NASA) 🎥 Video clips: credits shown on screen (Internet Archive · Wikimedia Commons). 🧊 3D scenes: our own simplified reconstructions for explanation, not to exact scale in every detail. 🎨 Thumbnail: AI-edited design based on real project photos Narration: AI voice (Google) · Font: Pretendard (SIL OFL) · Music: original #Hubble #NASA #Engineering