STS-31: launching Hubble
In the planning stages since the 1970s, and delayed by the post-Challenger-disaster downtime for the shuttle program, the Hubble Space Telescope is finally lifted into orbit aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. Hubble is just one of the scientific payloads for the five-day flight, with other experiments being conducted in the crew cabin and the cargo bay. Discovery’s crew for this flight is Commander Loren Shriver, Pilot Charles Bolden, and mission specialists Steven Hawley, Bruce McCandless and Kathryn Sullivan.
The 49th episode of the syndicated series Superboy, starring Gerard Christopher and Stacy Haiduk, airs.
The week-long national syndication window opens for 
NBC airs the 29th episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. J.G. Hertzler (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) guest stars.
The week-long national syndication window opens for 
The week-long national syndication window opens for 
The earliest test images from the Hubble Space Telescope alert ground-based astronomers to a serious problem: the telescope’s huge mirror has been ground to an incorrect shape, leaving the $2,000,000,000 telescope with a vision problem resulting in blurry pictures. Though they’re still an improvement over ground-based telescopes, the telescope’s main selling point – high-resolution images of distant objects – is moot. With the public considering the expensive satellite a failure (oblivious to the fact that it can be serviced via Space Shuttle), NASA begins an extensive investigation into the problem, arriving at a possible repair that can’t be applied until the first shuttle servicing mission to Hubble in 1993. In the meantime, attempts to correct the problem with Earthbound computer image processing yield some usable images.
The week-long national syndication window opens for 
The Soviet Union launches the Kristall module, whose pre-programmed systems bring it to the Mir space station for an automated docking. With facilities for material science experiments, additional gyroscopic stabilizers to keep Mir properly oriented, and other equipment, Kristall also features an extended docking port intended to allow the Soviet-made Buran shuttle to dock at Mir. In time, that docking port will allow a space shuttle to berth at Mir… but not the one its designers anticipate.
Alan Silvestri’s 
The week-long national syndication window opens for 
Former ELO frontman, producer and songwriter Jeff Lynne releases his first solo album, 
The week-long national syndication window opens for 
Four years after the band’s formal breakup, CBS Records releases (with cooperation from frontman Jeff Lynne) 
Encouraged by the public interest in 
CBS airs the 53rd episode of Ron Koslow’s fantasy series Beauty and the Beast, starring Ron Perlman, Jo Anderson, and Roy Dotrice. Suzie Plakson guest stars.
The Soviet Union launches Soyuz TM-10, carrying cosmonauts Gennadi Manakov and Gennady Strekalov to space station Mir for a long-duration stay in orbit. After a 130-day stay aboard Mir, the TM-10 crew returns, bringing with them Japanese TV reporter Toyohiro Akiyama, who would arrive aboard Mir via Soyuz TM-11 in December. Strekalov will return to serve another tour aboard Mir in the 1990s, becoming the first Russian cosmonaut to arrive in a Soyuz and return home in an American space shuttle.
Power pop supergroup Jellyfish releases its debut album 
Launched via space shuttle in May 1989, the long-delayed Magellan space probe reaches the planet Venus after an unusually long voyage (15 months) and begins an orbital insertion maneuver. Where most missions to Venus have reached the planet in only a few months, Magellan has had to make do without the more powerful Centaur liquid-fueled booster stage, resulting in a journey of a year and three months. (The Centaur upper stage had been cancelled after the Challenger disaster because it was felt that carrying an additional liquid-fueled rocket in a shuttle cargo bay was too risky.) Magellan is placed into an elliptical orbit, completely circling Venus every three hours, where it will conduct high-resolution radar mapping of the surface at the closest point in its orbit, and transmitting the resulting data to Earth while furthest from Venus. The first phase of the mapping mission will last through 1991.
Catalogued, restored, remastered, and released for the first time ever, 
Warner Bros. releases 
NASA’s Magellan space probe, orbiting the planet Venus, has completed a checkout phase and begins its primary mapping mission, intended to gather data of the Venusian surface as high resolution as one kilometer per pixel. Rather than using visible light – which would yield only images of Venus’ dense clouds – Magellan uses radar to map the planet’s blistering hot surface. Launched in May 1989 via space shuttle, Magellan will continue mapping the surface of Venus through May 1991.
The first episode of the superhero series The Flash, based on the DC Comics character, premieres on CBS, starring John Wesley Shipp (Dawson’s Creek) and Amanda Pays (Max Headroom). Tim Thomerson and Lycia Naff (Star Trek: The Next Generation) guest star.
The week-long national syndication window opens for