What was the original name of the Hubble Space Telescope before it was renamed?

Before it was renamed for astronomer Edwin Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope was called the Large Space Telescope. NASA developed the idea as a large orbital observatory that could observe ultraviolet and visible light above Earth’s atmosphere, where atmospheric turbulence and absorption limit ground-based telescopes.

The project’s name evolved during its long development. Early planning sometimes used “Large Orbiting Telescope,” but “Large Space Telescope,” commonly abbreviated LST, became the established project name. NASA and the European Space Agency then developed the observatory through the 1970s and early 1980s, with ESA contributing instruments, solar arrays and observing time.

In 1983, NASA renamed the Large Space Telescope the Hubble Space Telescope to honor Edwin Hubble, whose observations helped establish that galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way and that the universe is expanding. It launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990. The name is sometimes confused with the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory missions, which were earlier NASA space telescopes but were not Hubble’s original name.