NASA’S Artemis 1 Moon rocket launch has been postponed due to an issue with one of the engines.
The un-manned flight was meant to mark the next chapter in putting humans back on the moon and is the first in Nasa’s Artemis programme.
It was due to take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida but the space agency said earlier it was encountering an “unplanned stop”.
The space agency said: “Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson has called a scrub of the attempt of the launch of Artemis 1.
“The issue that came up was an engine bleed which couldn’t be remedied but the rocket is currently in a stable configuration.
“It was mostly tanked but not completely tanked.
“Engineers are now working on a plan to continue gathering data about this particular engine and the bleed that didn’t work out.”
It added that the first opportunity for the next launch attempt will be September 2 depending on how the issue of the engine bleed develops.
Similar fuel leaks hindered Nasa’s countdown tests in April and June.
Earlier, managers said they would be unable to know for sure whether the leaks had been resolved until attempting to load the rocket’s tanks with nearly one million gallons of super-cold fuel.
