Space telescopes

A space telescope sees light that the air blocks, or sees it more sharply from above it. They are grouped here by the kind of light they were built to detect, from gamma rays to microwaves, with whether each is still working. Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope each have a page with their videos.

24space telescopes in our list
10still working
14retired
6kinds of light covered

24 telescopes

					Notes
Hubble Space Telescope	Visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared	NASA / ESA	1990	Active	Serviced five times by Space Shuttle crews, last in 2009 Source
James Webb Space Telescope	Infrared	NASA / ESA / CSA	2021	Active	Sits at the Sun-Earth L2 point, 1.5 million km from Earth Source
Chandra X-ray Observatory	X-ray	NASA	1999	Active	Launched on Space Shuttle Columbia Source
XMM-Newton	X-ray	ESA	1999	Active	Source
NuSTAR	X-ray	NASA	2012	Active	First focusing telescope for high-energy X-rays Source
IXPE	X-ray	NASA / ASI	2021	Active	Measures the polarisation of X-rays Source
XRISM	X-ray	JAXA / NASA	2023	Active	Source
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope	Gamma ray	NASA	2008	Active	Source
Euclid	Visible and near-infrared	ESA	2023	Active	Maps dark matter and dark energy Source
CHEOPS	Visible	ESA	2019	Active	Measures the size of known exoplanets Source
Spitzer Space Telescope	Infrared	NASA	2003	Retired	Retired January 2020 Source
Kepler	Visible	NASA	2009	Retired	Retired October 2018 after finding thousands of exoplanets Source
Gaia	Visible	ESA	2013	Retired	Retired March 2025 after mapping about 2 billion stars Source
Herschel Space Observatory	Far-infrared and submillimetre	ESA	2009	Retired	Retired June 2013 when its coolant ran out Source
Planck	Microwave	ESA	2009	Retired	Mapped the leftover glow of the Big Bang; switched off October 2013 Source
INTEGRAL	Gamma ray	ESA	2002	Retired	Science operations ended February 2025 Source
WISE	Infrared	NASA	2009	Retired	Ran as NEOWISE until August 2024 Source
GALEX	Ultraviolet	NASA	2003	Retired	Retired 2013 Source
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory	Gamma ray	NASA	1991	Retired	Deorbited June 2000 Source
WMAP	Microwave	NASA	2001	Retired	Retired 2010 Source
ROSAT	X-ray	DLR / NASA / UK	1990	Retired	Ended 1999; re-entered 2011 Source
IRAS	Infrared	NASA / NL / UK	1983	Retired	First all-sky infrared survey; ran for ten months in 1983 Source
Einstein Observatory	X-ray	NASA	1978	Retired	First imaging X-ray telescope; 1978 to 1981 Source
Hipparcos	Visible	ESA	1989	Retired	Measured star positions; ended 1993 Source

What they see, and which still work

Space telescopes by the light they seeTelescopes

Active
Retired

Source: Agency mission pages; launch dates from Wikidata (CC0) Download the data (CSV)

Show the data

Space telescopes by the light they see
Light it sees	Active	Retired
Gamma ray	1	2
X-ray	5	2
Ultraviolet	0	1
Visible light	3	3
Infrared	1	4
Microwave	0	2

Videos

Space telescopes in video

Hubble and Webb, in date order.

Play video: Voyager 1: How It Proved It Had Reached Interstellar Space

Voyager 1: How It Proved It Had Reached Interstellar Space

Oruvi

Published 2 November 2026Duration 7:46

Watch video

Dates are when each video was first published on YouTube.

How these numbers are counted

This is a selection of the better-known space telescopes, not every one flown. The light each sees and its status are kept by hand from the operators’ mission pages (each row links its source); launch dates come from Wikidata. “Retired” means science operations have ended.

Data as of 2 November 2026. Source: Wikidata (CC0), with details from NASA, ESA and JAXA

What they see, and which still work

Videos

Space telescopes in video

Hera at Didymos: Plan for Two CubeSats and a Close Asteroid Look

Crew-12 Leaves the ISS: Dragon Freedom Undocking Step by Step

Crew-12 Hatch Closure: Dragon Freedom Readies to Leave the ISS

Starship Flight 14 Reaches Orbit and Three Falcons Fly in One Day

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Re-Entry & Splashdown

Crew-12 Return: Dragon Freedom Splashdown Off Los Angeles

Five Space Artifacts Adam Savage Identifies at the Air

Cygnus XL Departs the ISS: Release, Burn and Re-entry Plan

Sophie Adenot Back in Europe After 237 Days on the ISS

CRS-35: Falcon 9 Launches Dragon With Final Two ISS Solar Arrays

CRS-35: Falcon 9 Launches Cargo Dragon With Final IROSA Arrays

Starlink 15-25: Falcon 9 B1088 Launch and Landing at Vandenberg

Crew-12 Crew Look Back on 237 Days Aboard the ISS

SpaceX CRS-35 Dragon Docks at the ISS Harmony Zenith Port

Galileo: How Europe Built Its Own Satellite Navigation System

New Glenn Recovery: Blue Origin’s Plan for Weekly Launches

Roman Space Telescope: Falcon Heavy Launch and Path to L2

ISS iROSA Spacewalks 100 and 101: Final Solar Array Installs

NASA Moon Base Rovers: VIPER, Pegasus and the Crewed Lunar Vehicle

Bandwagon-5: Falcon 9 Rideshare Launch With Starfall Capsule

Neutron Delayed to 2027 After Voids Found in Carbon Dome

Artemis 3 Update: Rocket Progress, Landers and the 2028 Plan

Rocket Lab’s 98th Electron Launch Deploys Three HawkEye 360 Satellites

Deep Space Updates: MMX to Phobos, Crew-12 Return, Neutron Delay

US Spacewalk 100: Installing the Seventh ISS Roll-Out Solar Array

Artemis III: Orion Docks With Blue Moon and Starship in Orbit

Four Satellites That Came Back: LES-1, AO-7, IMAGE and BeeSat 1

Starship Flight 14: First Orbit and 26 Starlink V3 Satellites

Starship Flight 14: How V3 Reached Orbit and Deployed 26 Satellites

Starship Flights 1 to 14: How Build-Fly-Fail-Fix Reached Orbit

Starship’s 33 Raptor Engines: Four Reasons Behind Super Heavy

Apollo 13: The Oxygen Tank Failure and the Lunar Module Lifeboat

Challenger STS-51-L: O-Ring Failure, Cold Launch and Return to Flight

Challenger STS-51-L: The Night Engineers Said Don’t Launch

Voyager 1 Nears One Light-Day: Thrusters, Power and the Big Bang

How Starship’s Tower Catches Super Heavy: Flight 5 and After

Artemis 3 Becomes an Earth-Orbit Rehearsal for Moon Landers

Why Starship’s Heat Shield Uses Hexagonal Tiles and Full Reuse

Challenger: the O-Ring Chart and the Launch-Eve Teleconference

Challenger STS-51-L: The Seals, the Cold and 73 Seconds

Apollo 13: The Dropped Tank and Switches Behind the Explosion

Voyager 1 Pale Blue Dot: Why the Cameras Looked Back in 1990

Challenger’s Wreckage: Why NASA Sealed It in Missile Silos

Challenger: How Thiokol’s Engineers Were Overruled the Night Before

Curiosity at 14: Keeping a Mars Rover Running by Remote Control

Challenger STS-51-L: O-Ring Warnings, Cabin Evidence, Rogers Findings

Columbia STS-107: Five Failures Behind the Foam Strike on the Wing

Challenger STS-51-L: O-Rings, Cold and the Overruled Warning

Voyager 1 Reaches One Light-Day: Power, Memory and the Golden Record

How the Sky Crane Landed Curiosity on Mars in Seven Minutes

Apollo 13: How a Thermostat Error Led to the Oxygen Tank Blast

Apollo 13: How an Oxygen Tank Failure Nearly Stranded Three Men

Apollo 13: How Aquarius and a Makeshift CO2 Adapter Saved the Crew

Six Mars Rovers Compared: Landings, Discoveries and Distances

Voyager 1 and 2: Planetary Tour to One Light-Day From Earth

Challenger STS-51-L: The Cold O-Ring and the Launch Call

Apollo 13: The Tank Flaw and Crew’s Lifeboat Return

Challenger STS-51-L: The O-Ring Warning and the 73-Second Flight

Space Shuttle Story in a Card Box: Enterprise, Challenger, Columbia

Voyager 1: How It Proved It Had Reached Interstellar Space

Voyager 1: How It Proved It Had Reached Interstellar Space

How these numbers are counted