STS-31 was the 35th mission of NASA's Space Shuttle program and the 10th flight of Discovery. The primary purpose of this mission was the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) into low Earth orbit. The mission used the Space Shuttle Discovery, which lifted off from Launch Complex 39B on April 24, 1990, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Scott Douglas "Scooter" Altman is a retired United States Navy Captain and naval aviator, engineer, test pilot and former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. His fourth mission on STS-125 was the last servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. As of November 2022, he is the president of the Space operating group for ASRC Federal.
Steven Alan Hawley is a former NASA astronaut who flew on five U.S. Space Shuttle flights. He is professor of physics and astronomy and director of engineering physics at the University of Kansas.
STS-51 was a NASA Space Shuttle Discovery mission that launched the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) in September 1993. Discovery's 17th flight also featured the deployment and retrieval of the SPAS-ORFEUS satellite and its IMAX camera, which captured spectacular footage of Discovery in space. A spacewalk was also performed during the mission to evaluate tools and techniques for the STS-61 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission later that year. STS-51 was the first shuttle mission to fly a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, a Trimble TANS Quadrex. It was mounted in an overhead window where limited field of view (FoV) and signal attenuation from the glass severely impacted receiver performance. Full triple-redundant 3-string GPS would not happen until 14 years later with STS-118 in 2007.
STS-82 was the 22nd flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery and the 82nd mission of the Space Shuttle program. It was NASA's second mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope, during which Discovery's crew repaired and upgraded the telescope's scientific instruments, increasing its research capabilities. Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on February 11, 1997, returning to Earth on February 21, 1997, at Kennedy Space Center.
STS-109 (SM3B) was a Space Shuttle mission that launched from the Kennedy Space Center on 1 March 2002. It was the 108th mission of the Space Shuttle program, the 27th flight of the orbiter Columbia and the fourth servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. It was also the last successful mission of the orbiter Columbia before the ill-fated STS-107 mission, which culminated in the Columbia disaster.
John Mace Grunsfeld is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of five Space Shuttle flights and has served as NASA Chief Scientist. His academic background includes research in high energy astrophysics, cosmic ray physics and the emerging field of exoplanet studies with specific interest in future astronomical instrumentation. After retiring from NASA in 2009, he served as the deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. In January 2012, he returned to NASA and served as associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Grunsfeld announced his retirement from NASA in April 2016.
James Hansen Newman is an American physicist and a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) is a spectrograph, also with a camera mode, installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. Aerospace engineer Bruce Woodgate of the Goddard Space Flight Center was the principal investigator and creator of the STIS. It operated continuously from 1997 until a power supply failure in August 2004. After repairs, it began operating again in 2009. The spectrograph has made many important observations, including the first spectrum of the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet, HD 209458b.
The Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) is a camera formerly installed on the Hubble Space Telescope. The camera was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is roughly the size of a baby grand piano. It was installed by servicing mission 1 (STS-61) in 1993, replacing the telescope's original Wide Field and Planetary Camera (WF/PC). WFPC2 was used to image the Hubble Deep Field in 1995, the Engraved Hourglass Nebula and Egg Nebula in 1996, and the Hubble Deep Field South in 1998. During STS-125, WFPC2 was removed and replaced with the Wide Field Camera 3 as part of the mission's first spacewalk on May 14, 2009. After returning to Earth, the camera was displayed briefly at the National Air and Space Museum and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before returning to its final home at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Space Station 3D is a 2002 Canadian-American 3D short documentary film about the International Space Station written, produced, edited and directed by Toni Myers. Narrated by Tom Cruise, it is the first IMAX 3D production filmed in space.
STS-125, or HST-SM4, was the fifth and final Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis occurred on May 11, 2009, at 2:01 pm EDT. Landing occurred on May 24 at 11:39 am EDT, with the mission lasting a total of just under 13 days.
Pillars of Creation is a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constellation, some 6,500–7,000 light-years from Earth. These elephant trunks had been discovered by John Charles Duncan in 1920 on a plate made with the Mount Wilson Observatory 60-inch telescope. They are so named because the gas and dust are in the process of creating new stars, while also being eroded by the light from nearby stars that have recently formed.
The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) is the Hubble Space Telescope's last and most technologically advanced instrument to take images in the visible spectrum. It was installed as a replacement for the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 during the first spacewalk of Space Shuttle mission STS-125 on May 14, 2009.
Destiny in Space is a 70mm Canadian-American IMAX documentary film released in 1994. The film was written by Toni Myers, directed by Academy Award-winner Ben Burtt, and narrated by Leonard Nimoy.
James Lawson Neihouse is an American cinematographer who has been involved with many of the most memorable and successful IMAX 2D and IMAX 3D films to date.
Mission to Mir is a 1997 documentary film about the Mir Space Station.
Europa Report is a 2013 American science fiction film directed by Sebastián Cordero and written by Philip Gelatt. It stars Christian Camargo, Anamaria Marinca, Michael Nyqvist, Daniel Wu, Karolina Wydra, and Sharlto Copley. A found footage film, it recounts the fictional story of the first crewed mission to Europa, one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. Despite a disastrous technical failure that causes the loss of all communications with Earth, and a series of further crises, the crew continues its mission to Europa and finds mounting evidence of life on the moon.
In Saturn's Rings is a large format movie about Saturn made exclusively from real photographs taken by spacecraft. Director Stephen van Vuuren used more than 7.5 million photographs and numerous film techniques to create the effect of flying through space around Saturn and among its rings. CGI and 3-D modeling were not used in any capacity to create the realistic feel van Vuuren wanted for the viewer's experience. Most of the photos were taken by various major space missions.
Hail Columbia is a 1982 American IMAX documentary film about NASA's Space Shuttle program, particularly the first Space Shuttle, Columbia. The film was directed by Graeme Ferguson.
