The Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was first launched into orbit back in April 1990. It was promised to be our window to the universe. Unfortunately, it was put into orbit with an incorrect light-gathering mirror size. It was wrong in size by two-fiftieths of a human hair wide, but it was off enough to blur every image that the Hubble took. Three years later, in December of 1993 a spacewalk was conducted that repaired the ailing satellite.
While it was ailing, it wasn't frail. The HST is the size of a tour bus and weighs twice as heavy as a full-grown bull elephant. It can rearrange its trajectory in micro units and stay completely stationary as it moves through orbit at ten times the speed of a bullet from a rifle.
The benefit of a space-bounnd telescope is that it doesn't have to look through the dirty atmosphere of Earth. Radio telescopes can detect any heavenly body that gives off some kind of signal, but can only represent it in the form of a graph or color-coded printout. The Hubble shows the object with incredible detail and gives scientists and anyone who is interested a gorgeous view of the sky.