Space telescope Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched on April 24, 1990 by the Space Shuttle "Discovery" (STS-31). Performing astronomy from ground-based observatories on Earth is limited by the filtering and distortion of electromagnetic radiation (scintillation or twinkling) due to the atmosphere. Some terrestrial telescopes can reduce atmospheric effects with adaptive optics. A telescope orbiting Earth outside the atmosphere is subject neither to twinkling nor to light pollution from artificial light sources on Earth. As a result, the angular resolution of space telescopes is often much smaller than a ground-based telescope with a similar aperture. Space-based astronomy is even more important for
Space Surveillance Telescope Space Surveillance Telescope The Space Surveillance Telescope is a telescope for detecting and tracking orbital debris. It has a 3.5 meter (138″) aperture mirror and came online in 2011. Two noted design features include Mersenne-Schmidt type optics and a curved CCD. In 2010s the telescope, which was in New Mexico, United States, was transferred to United States Air Force Space Command and moved to Australia. The discovery and tracking of space debris is noted as a growing problem in the 21st century. One problem is that among the 20-30 thousand large objects in orbit that are tracked, and an estimated