NASA called off its second attempt to launch its Artemis I moon rocket and space capsule on Saturday.
“The #Artemis I mission to the Moon has been postponed,” the space agency said on Twitter. “Teams attempted to fix an issue related to a leak in the hardware transferring fuel into the rocket, but were unsuccessful,” it said.
The Artemis I mission is NASA’s first in a series of missions to allow for human exploration of the moon and Mars. It involves the launch of the Space Launch System rocket — the most powerful rocket the space agency has ever built — and the Orion space capsule.
NASA had spent nearly a week troubleshooting glitches with the Space Launch System that were behind its initial scrubbed launch on Monday.
The Artemis I mission, which has no crew on board, is part of NASA’s mission to return astronauts to the moon by 2025, to build a more permanent presence, and to do it before China.