HILO, Hawai'i — A court ruling has rescinded a permit to build six new telescopes atop Mauna Kea, further dimming the chances that the project will ever get built.

Big Island Circuit Judge Glenn Hara ruled that the telescope project needs to make a comprehensive management plan for the conservation and protection of the entire summit — not just the area surrounding the planned telescopes.

His ruling comes on top of a February decision by NASA to eliminate funding for the six 1.8-meter outrigger telescopes from its 2007 budget, possibly signaling the end of the $50 million project.

"The resource that needs to be conserved, protected and preserved is the summit area of Mauna Kea, not just the area of the project," Hara wrote in his Thursday decision.

The outrigger telescopes were expected to improve the reach of the W.M. Keck Observatory's twin giant telescopes atop the extinct volcano.

Scientists say the combined power of the telescopes could for the first time allow astronomers to see planets orbiting the stars closest to Earth.

Conservation groups that sought the court ruling argued that the management plan adopted by the University of Hawai'i Board of Regents in 2000 was not comprehensive and covered only the outrigger project of smaller telescopes around the Keck Observatory's dual giant telescopes, not the whole summit of Mauna Kea.

"You can't do piecemeal development in a conservation district," said Kealoha Pisciotta, president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, an organization of Hawaiian cultural practitioners with ties to the mountain.

"It helps to clarify the fact that the purpose of a conservation district is conservation. So construction in a conservation district has a lot of special conditions."

The university will now need to complete a management plan for the summit before it can hope to continue with the project, said Sierra Club spokeswoman Deborah J. Ward.

But since NASA cut money from the project, it is unlikely to be built any time soon, if ever, said Rolf-Peter Kudritzki, director of the University of Hawai'i Institute for Astronomy.

"The likelihood of moving ahead with outriggers was almost zero, anyway, because there wasn't any funding for them," Kudritzki said.

Two other large telescope projects are scheduled for Mauna Kea, Ward said.

They are the Pan-STARRS and the 30-meter Next Generation Large Telescope.