Marshall Space Flight Center of the launch vehicle. Finally, on April 24, 1990, on Mission STS-31, Shuttle "Discovery" launched the Hubble telescope successfully into its planned orbit. Almost immediately it was realized that the optical performance was not as expected; analysis of the flawed images showed that the primary mirror had been ground to the wrong shape, resulting in spherical aberration. Fortunately, the Hubble telescope had been designed to allow in-space maintenance, and in December 1993, mission STS-61 carried astronauts to the Hubble to make corrections and change some components. A second repair mission, STS-82, was made in February 1997, and a third, STS-103,
Space Shuttle Independence display cases with shuttle program artifacts. On August 14, 2014, a heavy lift was completed to place "Independence" on top of NASA 905, which had been moved to Space Center Houston from Ellington Field on April 30, 2014. The combined exhibit, named "Independence Plaza", opened to the public on January 23, 2016, at an estimated cost of . Space Shuttle Independence Space Shuttle "Independence, formerly known as Explorer", is a full-scale, high-fidelity replica of the Space Shuttle. It was built by Guard-Lee in Apopka, Florida, installed at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in 1993, and moved to Space Center Houston