Due to the significant Hubble Space Telescope malfunction that occurred over the weekend affecting the storage and transmittal of science data to Earth, NASA will evaluate the investigation results before fully determining the impact to launch of the STS-125 servicing mission.

Under consideration is the possibility of flying a back-up replacement system as part of the payload, which could be installed during the servicing mission. The back-up unit will need to be checked out and tested at Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and as a result, won't be ready to be delivered to Kennedy Space Center in Florida until the first week in January.

NASA now will fly space shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission to the International Space Station first, with the STS-125 servicing mission moving into 2009. Endeavour is targeted to launch Nov. 16. Managers are looking into moving the target date up a couple of days if possible.