How simple minuscule mistake on Hubble telescope ended up costing NASA $50,000,000
Ellie Kemp
Featured Image Credit: Jamesbenet/Getty Images
We've all made silly little mistakes in our jobs, although often they are only that; minor.
From forgetting to give that table the ketchup they'd asked for (and only remembering as you're dropping off to sleep that night), to copying the wrong person into a pretty important e-mail - we're only human.
But what if your f*** up cost your company $50 million? It sounds like a nightmare-ish scenario, yet it's exactly what happened when NASA launched its pioneering Hubble Telescope on April 24, 1990.
It's not the only time a costly mistake has been made, with a technician's simple bolting error back in 2003 costing a company hired by NASA a staggering $135 million.
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Anyway, the Hubble telescope - which cost around $1.5 billion to develop and launch, as per Space.com - was safely launched into low-Earth orbit less than 1,200 miles away from our planet's surface.
The telescope employs a complex 'mirror-based optical system' to gather and focus infrared, visible and ultraviolet light from the universe, offering up unique views of the cosmos.
Despite its successful launch, scientists discovered a pretty major issue; the telescope's images were, in fact...blurry?
Worse still, it was a teeny, tiny error that offset the whole project.
As NASA explains: "Hubble’s main mirror had the wrong shape because of a lens spacing error. The spacing was off by 1.3 millimeters, which resulted in a mirror that was too flat away from its center."
The flaw, called spherical aberration, gave Hubble’s primary mirror 'more than one focal point,' resulting in its blurry images.
It's a bit like having astigmatism in our eyes - when there are 'irregularities' in the curve of the eye’s lens or its cornea, 'light entering the pupil can have multiple focal points, making our vision blurry,' NASA explains.
Fortunately for us, astigmatism can be corrected in a number of ways - mainly, a pair of eyeglasses.
And NASA used that same technique to fix up Hubble's primary mirror.
Scientists went on to develop Hubble’s Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement, known as COSTAR which, roughly the size of a large refrigerator, acted like a pair of corrective eyeglasses.
Luckily our eyewear doesn't need to be so huge...
So, COSTAR was installed by astronauts during Hubble’s first servicing mission in December 1993 and successfully corrected the issue.
Developing COSTAR came at a cost though; $50 million to be exact, which is just over $110 million in today's money.
As time went on, all instruments installed on the Hubble had 'built-in corrective optics,' eventually rendering COSTAR obsolete.
So, the 'eyeglasses' had served their purpose and were removed during Hubble's fourth servicing mission in May 2009.
COSTAR made it back to Earth in one piece and is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.
Despite its wobbly start, the Hubble Space Telescope has made a number of incredible scientific discoveries - including confirming the expansion of the universe and discovering new moons of Pluto.
It's also captured detailed photos of galaxies and star formation regions, offering important insights into the formation and evolution of the universe.
Hubble was only meant to remain in orbit for a maximum of 15 years, yet it has exceeded its lifespan and is currently at 24 years and counting.
It just proves that all's well that ends well, right?