Space Shuttle Discovery March 9, having spent a cumulative total of almost a full year in space. "Discovery" performed both research and International Space Station (ISS) assembly missions. It also carried the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. "Discovery" was the first operational shuttle to be retired, followed by "Endeavour" and then "Atlantis". The name "Discovery" was chosen to carry on a tradition based on ships of exploration, primarily , one of the ships commanded by Captain James Cook during his third and final major voyage from 1776 to 1779, and Henry Hudson's , which was used in 1610–1611 to explore Hudson Bay and
Hubble Space Telescope repaired, upgraded, and replaced systems on the telescope, including all five of the main instruments. The fifth mission was initially canceled on safety grounds following the "Columbia" disaster (2003). However, after spirited public discussion, NASA administrator Mike Griffin approved the fifth servicing mission, completed in 2009. The telescope is operating , and could last until 2030–2040. Its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is scheduled for launch in March 2021. In 1923, Hermann Oberth—considered a father of modern rocketry, along with Robert H. Goddard and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky—published "" ("The Rocket into Planetary Space"), which mentioned how a telescope could