By Emily Hawkins
NASA has scrapped plans for a second go at launching the Artemis 1 rocket following a hydrogen tank leak.
The US space agency faced obstacles in the way of technical and weather issues on its first attempt to send the rocket to space last week.
Now, engineers at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center have advised that a second attempt be delayed.
In a statement on Saturday, NASA said: “The #Artemis I mission to the Moon has been postponed. Teams attempted to fix an issue related to a leak in the hardware transferring fuel into the rocket, but were unsuccessful.”
Earlier this year, the US agency gave the commercial space industry the green light and unveiled its Artemis programme, which seeks to put boots on the Moon for the first time in 50-years.
“We’re taking commercial business of the face of the Earth,” Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said prior to the first private sector launch to the International Space Station in April.
The UK has made “important contributions” to Artemis so far, the government said earlier this month.
Imperial College London has been helping to build a radiation sensor for the Lunar Gateway, an outpost currently in development with businesses such as SpaceX that will orbit the Moon.
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