Nasa calls off Artemis 1 moon rocket launch for second time after fuel leak

Head of US space agency suggests maiden test flight will probably be delayed until the middle of October

Nasa called off its latest attempt to launch the groundbreaking Artemis 1 moon rocket on Saturday after failing to stem a fuel leak discovered during tanking. It was the second time in five days that technical issues had kept the spacecraft on the launchpad.

Mission managers at Kennedy Space Center waited until late in the countdown to scrub the liftoff after the failure of several workarounds to try to plug the leak of liquid hydrogen as it was being pumped into the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.