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
James Webb Space Telescope commissioning phase. An L2 orbit is only meta-stable so it requires orbital station-keeping or an object will drift away from this orbital configuration. The desire for a large infrared space telescope traces back decades; in the United States the "Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility" was planned while the Space Shuttle was in development and the potential for infrared astronomy was acknowledged at that time. Compared to ground telescopes, space observatories were free from atmospheric absorption of infrared light; this would be a whole "new sky" for astronomers. However, infrared telescopes have a disadvantagethey need to stay extremely cold and the longer