Cape Canaveral, FL - Science observations aboard the Hubble Space Telescope were on hold on Friday following a pair of problems that cropped up as the observatory recovered from a computer failure, NASA said.
Hubble Space Telescope's hardware modules
© REUTERS/NASATwo engineers in the Space Telescope Operations Control Center sit at consoles during the switch of the Hubble Space Telescope's hardware modules, October 15, 2008.

Engineers successfully switched Hubble to a backup computer on Thursday and were watching as the telescope's instruments were automatically reactivating.

However on Friday NASA posted a notice on its website saying "the activation of the telescope's science instruments and resumption of observations has been suspended following two anomalies seen in systems on the telescope Thursday."

A news conference was planned for later on Friday.

The faulty computer, which is needed to collect and process data from science instruments, prompted NASA to delay a long-awaited space shuttle mission to service the telescope. The flight has been rescheduled for February, when the crew will attempt to replace the failed computer.

The space telescope, which orbits about 300 miles above Earth, has changed scientists' understanding of the origin, evolution and contents of the universe and delivered unprecedented images of distant galaxies and celestial phenomena.