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NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1990, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-31 mission. According to the NASA Science timeline, the deployment occurred after a multi-year delay following the 1986 Challenger accident. The project, which is a joint venture with the European Space Agency, placed the observatory in a low Earth orbit to capture astronomical data without atmospheric interference. While the telescope initially suffered from a spherical aberration in its primary mirror, records from the Space Telescope Science Institute document the success of subsequent repair missions. Reports from Astronomy Magazine and historical NASA archives confirm that the telescope remains one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built.