NASA's Artemis moon mission won't launch anytime soon

NASA will not attempt to launch a vehicle around the moon this week after two previous attempts were called off.

It's possible that the team will take another shot at the moon in October. The U.S. space agency can't conflict with a SpaceX flight that will carry astronauts to the International Space Station in less than a month.

NASA may ask the spaceport for an extension on its certification so it can try to launch sooner because of the flight terminated system.

"If we don't get a waiver, it's a rollback scenario," said Mike Sarafin.

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Next steps will be announced in about a week. Some work may be done at the platform before the rocket leaves.

The second launch attempt was canceled after the team found a large fuel leak. The liquid hydrogen was more than the permissible level. There is a high risk of fire when hydrogen is mixed in the air.

He said that it was clear that we weren't going to be able to manage the leak like we did on Monday.

The cause of the leak is being investigated by NASA. There is a chance that an accidental overpressurization of the fuel line may have been the cause.

There was a liquid hydrogen leak, an engine that appeared not to be chilling down, and bad weather during the initial launch attempt. The engine issue was investigated by NASA and they believed the problem was an inaccurate sensor. The team was confident enough to try again on Saturday.

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It will be the first deep spaceflight of a capsule in about 50 years. A 40,000-mile swing past the moon is one of the things that will be done on the trip. A successful mission will clear the way for astronauts to use the vehicles to go to the moon and eventually Mars.

scrubbed launches are common, mission managers said. The space shuttle had 20.

Jim Free, associate administrator of exploration systems development, said that he loved the question of whether or not they were confident.

We don't just say that we hope this will work. The hydrogen leaks that we had on Monday made us confident that we could do another launch today. Today's leaks are different from those.