NASA said Thursday it will launch its final shuttle mission to the Hubble space telescope on May 11, a day earlier than planned, to avoid conflicts with other scheduled missions.

The new launch date is scheduled for 1801 GMT on May 11 from the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA said.

Space Shuttle program deputy director LeRoy Cain said last week that the shuttle Atlantis was on schedule to depart with a seven member crew to service the space telescope and carry out any necessary repairs.

The shuttle must liftoff on either May 11, 12 or 13 because planned military launch activities would block all other launches until May 22.

The US space agency prefers to leave a three-day window around its launch dates in case the mission is delayed by bad weather or last-minute technical hitches.

"The team is in a very good position to go to fly," Cain said last week.

A mission to Hubble carries more risks of being hit by space debris or micrometeorites than a flight to the International Space Station, as the telescope orbits at almost twice the height of the ISS.

Launched in 1990, Hubble orbits the Earth at an altitude of 575 kilometers (357 miles), using powerful instruments to peer into deep space.

The space telescope is considered one of the greatest tools in the history of astronomy, providing insights into the origins and evolution of the universe.

This will be the fifth and last mission to the Hubble. Last year a shuttle Atlantis flight to the telescope had to be twice rescheduled after it ran into transmission problems.

NASA officials hope this mission will allow the Hubble to keep functioning until at least 2014, when it is due to be replaced by a highly sophisticated space telescope with an eagle-eye camera, the James Webb Space Telescope.

Scientists hope the new telescope will help to lift the veil off the mysteries and origins of the universe.