Re: What Space shuttle program was bringing telescopes to earth?

ASTRO is the answer

 The Space Shuttle Transportation system flew two packages of
recoverable telescopes, under the name ASTRO,  dedicated to obtaining 
spectra and photopolarimetry of several hundred objects in the Ultraviolet 
end of the spectrum - not obtainable from Earth 
 In Dec 2-11 1990 the ASTRO-1 mission flew on board the Space Shuttle
Orbiter Columbia  STS-35 mission attached to the NASA/ ESA Spacelab
module in its unmanned pallet version. Three UV telescope/instruments
 The Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo Polarimety Experiment(WUPPE)
 the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope( HUT) 
and the Ultraviolet Telescope (UIT) were flown attached to a common
pointing system , and exposed to the space environment in the cargo bay.
 The package was retrieved at landing, re-fitted and upgraded for a re-
flight  on the Shuttle Endeavour STS-67 ASTRO-2 mission from 2-18 1995-
the longest shuttle mission thus far.
 Several hundred objects were observed and their spectra recorded 
 References
 URLs
 www.sal.wisc.edu/WUPPE/astro2 http://www.spacescience.nasa.gov.missions/
-- 
Michael Martin-Smith