Day: February 11, 1997

Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off on a ten-day mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Over 30 hours of spacewalks are conducted to repair and upgrade Hubble with new parts, and the shuttle engines are fired in short, steady bursts to raise the telescope’s orbit by over eight miles before it is released again. Aboard Discovery on her 22nd flight are Commander Kenneth Bowersox, Pilot Scott Horowitz, and mission specialists Mark Lee, Steven Hawley, Gregory Harbaugh, Steven Smith and Joseph Tanner.