What was the launch date of the first Hubble servicing mission (STS-61)?

The first Hubble servicing mission, STS-61, launched on December 2, 1993. Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:27 UTC, beginning the mission that would correct Hubble’s flawed vision.

Hubble had launched in 1990 with a primary mirror suffering from spherical aberration. During STS-61, astronauts installed the Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, or COSTAR, and replaced the original Wide Field and Planetary Camera with WFPC2, which contained its own corrective optics. These upgrades restored the observatory’s ability to produce sharply focused images.

The mission was exceptionally demanding. The crew captured Hubble, replaced solar arrays, changed gyroscopes and other hardware, and completed five spacewalks—the largest number performed on a single Shuttle mission at that time. The astronauts released the repaired telescope on December 9, and Endeavour landed on December 13 after nearly 11 days in space.

STS-61 is sometimes confused with later Hubble servicing missions, including STS-82 in 1997 and STS-125 in 2009. Those missions upgraded Hubble further, but December 2, 1993, belongs specifically to the first repair mission.