"We won't launch today due to weather that is very poor," NASA spokesman Ed Campion said, adding that mission control officials would meet early Sunday to plan their future course.

NASA official Joe Wells said a decision on whether to launch on Sunday will depend on the weather forecast as well as technical and logistical factors.

The agency may also decide to delay the flight until January, he added.

"There are some technical issues at the backside of the mission that need to be worked out," Wells said without elaborating.

Meteorologists expected the rain-laden clouds that have been hanging over Cape Canaveral for two days to dissipate on Sunday. They said there was a 60-percent chance the weather would favor a launch at 7:50 p.m. local time (0050 GMT) on Sunday.

On Saturday, weather forecasters had been giving Discovery only a 30-percent chance for acceptable lift-off weather.

It was the second time in two days that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration cancelled the Discovery launch because of poor weather.

The mission, the 96th for the US space shuttle program and the 27th for Discovery, is aimed at repairing the ailing Hubble telescope, which has been disabled since mid-November.

"We all would like to end the year with a success," Joseph Rothenberg, NASA associate administrator for space flights, told AFP.

NASA issued Discovery a clean bill of technical health early Friday, but a clearing in overcast skies officials had been counting on did not materialize either Friday or Saturday.

Several spacewalks will be needed to fix the Hubble telescope, which is in an orbit 600 kilometers (373 miles) from Earth.

The telescope is equipped with six gyroscopes, but most of them are out of order. A minimum of three functional gyroscopes is needed for the Hubble to maintain its position in space and gather information effectively.

Discovery, with its seven-member crew of five Americans and two Europeans, is scheduled to travel through space for two days before reaching the Hubble, grasping it with a robotic arm and drawing it into its hold.

Once the Hubble has been transferred to the hold, its gyroscopes are to be replaced, along with the telescope's onboard computer and one of its radio transmitters.

Touchdown back on Earth was set for after Christmas, making this space mission the first in more than two decades to have astronauts in space during the holiday. The last was the Skylab mission in 1973.

The first manned trip to the Moon, the Apollo 8 in 1968, also lasted through Christmas.

NASA is under pressure to wrap up the Discovery mission before New Year's to avoid possible complications stemming from the year 2000 computer problem.

On the other hand, the agency would like to complete repairs of the Hubble this year because it believes its astronauts are in their best shape to do the work now.

"One of the reasons we would like to launch before year's end is that we have a team that is ready," said Rothenberg. "They are at their peak. If we postpone until January, we would need to train them in order to peak them up again."

Meanwhile, NASA officials are not hiding their disappointment with the results of this year. Only two of the scheduled six shuttle flights have actually taken place -- not to mention the loss of the Mars Polar Lander and other mishaps.

NASA's Shuttle Web Center

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Satellite Launch To Boost DTH In India
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The successful launch Thursday of India's heaviest satellite from spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana may have boosted the country's space research efforts to yet another level, but it has also lifted the spirits of at least three Direct-To-Home televisions broadcasters, one of which has been waiting for years to launch its services in India.

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