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| Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement |
| Abbreviation | COSTAR |
| Mission | Servicing Mission 1 |
| Operator | National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) |
| Manufacturer | Ball Aerospace, Martin Marietta |
| Launch | 1993 (installation on Space Shuttle Endeavour) |
| Country | United States |
Corrective Optics Space Telescope Axial Replacement (COSTAR) was a deployable corrective optical assembly installed on the Hubble Space Telescope during STS-61 in 1993 to compensate for a spherical aberration in Hubble's primary mirror. The device was designed and delivered by teams including Ball Aerospace, PerkinElmer, and Marshall Space Flight Center personnel working with Space Telescope Science Institute scientists to restore imaging performance for instruments such as the Faint Object Camera, Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph, and Faint Object Spectrograph. COSTAR's success involved collaboration among Johnson Space Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and international partners including European Space Agency contractors.
The aberration discovered after the 1990 launch of the Hubble Space Telescope prompted investigation by panels including the Rogers Commission-style review teams and committees at NASA headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center, with corrective proposals evaluated alongside options from Ball Aerospace, PerkinElmer, and academic groups at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology. Political and programmatic considerations involved stakeholders such as the United States Congress, Office of Management and Budget, and the White House, while engineering solutions referenced heritage from missions like Very Large Array optics studies and technologies developed at Rockwell International and Honeywell. The decision to perform an on-orbit servicing mission integrated expertise from Johnson Space Center EVA planners, Kennedy Space Center launch operations, and flight crews drawn from Space Shuttle Endeavour training rosters.
COSTAR was a retrofit assembly incorporating reflective optics, deployable mechanisms, and precision alignment hardware designed by Ball Aerospace and fabricated with optical prescriptions influenced by work at PerkinElmer and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The unit used small corrective mirrors placed into instrument optical paths, actuated by mechanisms tested at Marshall Space Flight Center and verified at facilities including Caltech optics labs and Jet Propulsion Laboratory testbeds. Optical metrology for COSTAR referenced procedures used by National Optical Astronomy Observatory teams and calibration methods from Space Telescope Science Institute instrument scientists; structural interfaces matched payload bay hardware standards from Johnson Space Center avionics divisions. COSTAR's materials and coatings employed industry suppliers such as Spectrolab and fabrication techniques from Lockheed Martin subcontractors, with thermal control derived from models used on Chandra X-ray Observatory development.
COSTAR was delivered to orbit aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-61, with installation performed during multiple extravehicular activities overseen by Johnson Space Center EVA flight controllers and executed by astronauts trained at Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory facilities. The servicing sequence coordinated flight dynamics inputs from Mission Control Center teams, attitude control adjustments by Goddard Space Flight Center engineers, and instrument safing procedures defined by Space Telescope Science Institute staff. After mechanical integration into a replaced axial instrument bay, COSTAR's corrective mirrors were aligned using telemetry processed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory software tools and calibrated through observing campaigns planned by astronomers at Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and European Southern Observatory collaborators.
Following installation, COSTAR restored diffraction-limited performance to affected instruments, enabling scientific programs led by investigators at Space Telescope Science Institute, California Institute of Technology, University of California, Princeton University, and Harvard University. Results from COSTAR-enabled observations contributed to studies associated with the Hubble Deep Field, planetary nebula spectrophotometry, quasar absorption-line work, and investigations of dark matter in galaxy clusters pursued by teams at University of Cambridge and Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Instrument teams at Goddard Space Flight Center and researchers at European Space Agency institutes published revised calibrations used by survey projects from Sloan Digital Sky Survey collaborators and mission scientists at Space Telescope Science Institute.
As newer instruments with internal corrective optics such as the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 and later the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Cosmic Origins Spectrograph were installed during subsequent servicing missions, COSTAR became redundant; it was removed during Servicing Mission 4 and placed in the shuttle payload for return to Earth. COSTAR's hardware and lessons learned informed later optical engineering at organizations including Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, and academic programs at University of Arizona and University College London, shaping practices for on-orbit servicing, optical fabrication, and mission assurance at NASA centers.
Related corrective approaches included the replacement of defective optics by installing Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on STS-61, and the development of instruments such as Advanced Camera for Surveys, Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph, produced by collaborations among PerkinElmer, Ball Aerospace, Goddard Space Flight Center, and international partners like European Space Agency institutes. The broader legacy influenced design choices for observatories including James Webb Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and ground-based facilities such as Very Large Telescope and Keck Observatory, and informed policies at NASA headquarters and program offices for future servicing missions and partnership models with institutions like Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Max Planck Society.