March 2 – 20, 2020, marks the 25th anniversary of the Astro-2 space shuttle mission (STS-67) that carried research scientist Sam Durrance and the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT) into low-earth orbit. HUT was a project that grew out of the sounding rocket program, and it was the brainchild of Prof. Arthur Davidsen.

“I didn’t want the anniversary to pass without some recognition of this marvelous mission, which was one of the highlights of my career, but also a capstone on nearly 20 years of effort by many in our department to build and fly HUT. HUT was a 0.9m telescope with a prime focus far ultraviolet spectrograph. The spectrograph itself is on display in the Bloomberg second floor lobby, but HUT is actually on display in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington.”
– Bill Blair
Mission Synopsis