American space agency NASA has decided to assign its orbiting Kepler Observatory with a new mission in the Earth-like planet hunting game.

Kepler, which specializes in detecting Earth-like planets, was sidelined by NASA scientists last year because of some technical issues and glitches. Its reaction wheels had started malfunctioning, which affected the planet-hunter's pointing mechanism.

But, the scientists managed to work out the issues and an extraordinary recovery encouraged the scientists to give it a new mission.

The panel of astrophysicists, which approved the new mission for Kepler on Friday, expressed hope that the new mission might have in-depth implications and could provide the scientific community with abundant new information.

Approving the new mission, the panel said, "This is an outstanding mission and we look forward to the results from the program. K2 uniquely addresses a range of observational goals and is expected to engage a broad community of scientists."

The new agenda for Kepler includes ongoing search for Earth-like planets, particularly around bright stars in space. The observatory will be looking at a part of the sky for around eighty days before turning its focus to the next area of sky.

Kepler will also observe bright star clusters like the Beehive and Pleiades. In addition, it will try to track the rise & fall of light from bursting stars in other galaxies.

Kepler 2 is expected to run for a period of around four years.