5 Tala Hubble Telescope

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, was initially crippled by a spherical aberration in its primary mirror — a polishing error of just 2.2 micrometers rendered its first images blurred. The corrective optics mission, STS-61, flew in December 1993 and remains one of the most technically complex spacewalks ever performed. By 2015, when this coin was struck, Hubble had completed over a million observations and was deep into its fourth servicing mission's extended science program.

Samoa entered the commemorative silver market aggressively in the early 2010s, issuing numerous collector pieces tied to science and space themes through the New Zealand Mint.