Hubble – now 17 years old has a successor due to be launched in 2013 – The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
We can’t quite work out how much more powerful than the Hobble it will be but here’s a quote from Nasa: “Clearly we need a much bigger telescope to go back much further in time to see the very birth of the universe,” said Edward Weiler, director of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre.