Hubble Trouble - How did the Space Telescope Mirror End Up Flawed ?

The Hubble space telescope was at the time meant to be the finest telescope ever made with the smoothest most perfect mirror on earth.
So how did the $1.5 Billion project end up with a flawed mirror that had a grinding error 10x greater than the required tolerance and so bad that it could not be focused once in space.

Presented by
Paul Shillito

Written & Researched by
Andy Munzer

Additional Material By
Paul Shillito

Images and footage
NASA & ESA

Music by
Paul Shillito

[Ramius]

Almost did not click on this video because I have seen others explain it but this was by far the clearest and best one yet. Thanks

[JohnnyUtah]

I came for the science. I stayed for the shirts.

[originalbluebuddha]

This really was a case of supreme overconfidence.

Most people have never heard of Perkin-Elmer, but these guys were legendary in the optics field going back to before WWII and had been building top of the line lenses, aerial surveillance and spy satellite cameras for decades before the Hubble fiasco. They invented and owned the patents for most of the processes & equipment they utilized, and that's why they discounted the second test, as that equipment hadn't been certified by them to test spherical anomalies.. It was simply inconceivable to them that could have screwed up.

[Vanderearden]

I worked at Perkin-Elmer from 1989 to 92 in Quality Control. My job was to log, document, file and direct all schematics of engineering. Not a single schematic left my department without multi departmental approval. As such, I saw everything concerning the Hubble mirror as well as the ISS, which at the time was called Space Station Freedom. While the majority of this explaination is true, it's only part of the story. NASA was involved in every step of the process. The contract was bid on and accepted at a particular variance. Half way through the project, NASA realized they needed a finer polish. They refused to renegotiate the contract as this finer polish would require extra costs to build deeper polishers. Instead, they agreed to the level of polish contracted and THEY would facilitate the deeper polish at their facilities or elsewhere. As for the 15 million dollar fine, yes that was paid, but as a cost over run as the mirror in question is actually the 2nd mirror produced. The original mirror broke during packaging of delivery. Hence the delay in delivery. As for the measurement error, it was only an error in measurement to the new directive. the mirror passed testing and inspection according to the original contract. NASA apparently didn't or couldn't polish down the mirror. They were under pressure to deliver a product because of the money involved as well as launch windows. Yes, P-E bares responsibility for the delay, but met the contract optic guidelines. The official story, the one presented here, was a nice way for both P-E and NASA to save face. P-E went on to become Orbital Science and enjoys healthy government contracts to this day.

[sidoney]

I work in Analytical Chemistry and we've had in the past Perkin Elmer engineers over to service some instruments. I always mention this to rib them.

[fallenpastabean]

Curious Droid
You're the best channel for precise/clear explanatory approach to scientific things all while maintaining the simplicity for even the non-scientific thinkers to comprehend the content of your videos. Keep it up.

[BGraves]

I like how they checked it with another instrument but discounted it because it wasn't certified instrument. What's the point in testing something when you just completely ignore the results?

There's always more to the story. Maybe you can track down some employees and get the real story from their perspective?

[X-Gen-]

As a kid I remember the excitement of the Hubble launch followed by the disappointing news that the mirror was flawed. All good in the end though. The images were and still are mind blowing. Can't wait to see what the James Webb has to show us.

[rjreynoldsmusic]

Great video as always. My grandfather worked for Perkin Elmer, and worked on the mirror for the Hubble. He was devastated when it wouldn't work. The whole timeline was very rushed, and the lead scientist committed suicide.

[billymcilvian]

You would be an amazing supervillian. I mean that in a nice way.

[jsfbr]

(1) This is an excellent review of the problem, with all necessary photographs and diagrams to help in understanding its origins. Thanks a lot. (2) How about another video explaining how the correction was made?

[AlaskaSkidood]

Things like this make me wonder what alien civilizations would think of us if they found our remains and artifacts: We worked so hard to get a precision instrument into space, but the botched it together on some critical parts.

[strmforce]

There aren't many channels out there that go into as much detail in their research as this guy.
Vintage space is another really good one

[poeslaw]

3 spacers .10 each, cost to find problem ~1000 in paid overtime, cost to fix in space ~10s of millions. Government contractor still gets paid priceless.

[OmegaWolf]

Many faults here. NASA, for putting pressure on the company to hurry things along, and the company itself for taking shortcuts and ignoring the fault they knew damn well was there.

[roynelsong]

I worked for Kodak at the time, we were told many astronomers at the time were lobbying NASA to use the Kodak mirror for the primary. This was due to, among other reasons, the more traditional Kodak manufacturing process as well as experience with kh11 spy satellites.

[edgeeffect]

Speaking as an engineer... That test setup was simply (and Story Musgrave agrees with me ;) )
But at least it led to one of the best Space Shuttle missions in the pre-ISS era.

[DuhAverageJoe]

They ignored multiple red flags, ran only ONE test, and STILL installed it?! Yeah, I'm sure they would never make an expensive mistake like that again!

[PSPMHaestros]

Oh boy, this channel is getting better every day!

[jamesspash]

My grandfather was head of the polishing department for years. When I asked him what went wrong, he told me, the Hubble was such a big deal that the engineers grabbed the project and moved it to a different plant instead of leaving it within his group, "the men that knew what they were doing" were his exact words. We would not have made that mistake.