HUT was one of four telescopes included on the Astro-1 Spacelab mission, which flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia for nine days beginning Dec. 2, 1990. The spectacular night launch came more than 12 years after Hopkins scientists first conceived the project. The other Astro-1 telescopes included the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT), the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment (WUPPE), and the Broad-Band X-Ray Telescope (BBXRT).
There are both a blue and white border version of this patch. The white border appears to be slightly less detailed (for example in the galaxy arms)