1. A window on the universe

It’s 27 January 1986. Astronaut Kathy Sullivan has travelled halfway across the United States for an appointment with a machine 40 years in the making, a telescope once imagined as little more than science fiction.

NASA believes it is capable of doing the impossible: peering deeper into the universe than ever before and unlocking some of its greatest secrets.

Inside Building 157 in Sunnyvale, California, Kathy Sullivan looks up at the Hubble Space Telescope. Delicate and extraordinarily complex, it will be her responsibility to make sure this remarkable machine makes it safely into space.

Some scenes in this series use recreated sound effects.

13 Minutes: Trouble with Hubble is a BBC Audio Science Unit production for the BBC World Service.

Hosted by space scientist Maggie Aderin.

Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg, and produced by Russell Emanuel, for Bleeding Fingers Music.

Archive:
Mission audio and oral histories, Nasa History Office