The space agency that operates the Hubble Space Telescope is NASA, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA manages the spacecraft, coordinates its engineering support, and oversees the scientific program.
Hubble is a NASA Great Observatory, launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on 24 April 1990. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center controls the telescope, while the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore selects observing targets, schedules observations, and processes the resulting data for researchers around the world.
A common mix-up is ESA, the European Space Agency. ESA is not the primary operator, but it is a major Hubble partner. European institutions helped build instruments, contributed hardware, and supplied observing time for European astronomers. Hubble’s official partnership is therefore often described as NASA/ESA, even though NASA is the agency operating the mission.
Hubble is also sometimes confused with newer observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope. Webb is a NASA-led international mission with ESA and Canadian participation, but it operates farther from Earth and is a separate telescope.