Lifting Hubble from cargo bay

In the new film "IMAX: Hubble 3D," viewers are brought inside the story of NASA's attempt to do last-chance repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope. After being initially launched into space in 1990, it was discovered that the telescope's mirror had a 1/50th of an inch-size flaw that compromised its focus and ultimately resulted in a 1993 repair mission.

Over the years, there have been four service missions, and those have allowed Hubble to look deeper and deeper into space.

In 2006, the launch of STS-125, the Space Shuttle mission to do final repairs on Hubble, was nearly canceled due to safety concerns stemming from the 2003 explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia. But when the concept was proposed of sending the Space Shuttle Atlantis into space with a second shuttle on stand-by, NASA gave the go-ahead.

On May 19, 2009, after finishing the final round of repairs on the Hubble, a remote manipulator system arm on Atlantis hoists the telescope from the shuttle's cargo bay. Astronauts aboard Atlantis operated the IMAX 3D camera that was mounted in the shuttle's cargo bay after extensive training back home on Earth.

March 15, 2010 6:00 AM PDT

Photo by: Warner Bros.