Discovery's payload bay doors are prepared for closure at launch pad 39B. Photo: NASA/KSC

NASA officials will meet today to select a launch date for the shuttle Discovery's much-needed mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

The meeting is expected to conclude with the U.S. space agency announcing December 9 as the day Discovery will begin its 10-day mission to fix Hubble's crippled pointing system.

"The 9th is still doable. There just isn't much margin," NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham said.

Technical troubles have used all the extra padding shuttle managers had built into Discovery pre-flight schedule. That means if any additional gremlins surface over the next week, the shuttle wouldn't meet its appointed launch date.

But delays are nothing new to this mission, the third shuttle flight to service and upgrade the $3 billion Hubble telescope.

The mission was originally scheduled for October 14, but a series of wiring problems and other work-place incidents have kept Discovery grounded on Earth.

Once in space, four of Discovery's seven international astronauts will perform a quartet of spacewalks to install new pointing equipment and other electronics into Hubble.