Thousands of scientists all over the World use HST data to carry out research. However the headquarters of HST is the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) housed in an inconspicuous building on the edge of the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland USA.
Inside, receptionist Yvonne Crew welcomes visitors beneath a scale model of HST.
In the basement is Flight Operations from where the telescope is controlled and monitored. The other floors are occupied by over a hundred scientists studying HST images, planning to take more images and theorising and predicting new scientific ideas.
Twenty of these scientists are from the European Space Agency (ESA), reflecting the proportion of funding HST received from ESA.