WASHINGTON, April 16 (Xinhua) -- The United States will cut down its scheduled shuttle flights in 2007 from five to four, NASA officials said on Monday.

The revised launch dates for this year's targeted space mission will be June 8 for Atlantis; Aug. 9 for Endeavour; Oct. 20 for Discovery and Dec. 6 for Atlantis.

The U.S. space agency also set dates for two missions in early 2008, for Endeavour on Valentine's Day and Discovery two months later, but gave few hints for flights after Discovery's space odyssey on April 24 2008.

However, shuttle and station program officials, who have a final say on the launch, will still consider options for further shuttle flights and the scheduled launch dates may change according to circumstances, NASA said.

Earlier in the year NASA managers had hoped to squeeze five shuttle flights into 2007, but the first flight, originally scheduled for March 15, had to be postponed to early June after a hailstorm damaged the fuel tank of Atlantis, creating a domino-effect of launch delays for the rest of the year.