Saturday brought another launch scratch for the Artemis I mission.

Technical issues caused delays on Saturday and eventually robbed spectators in Cape Canaveral, Florida — and around the country — of something Americans haven’t seen in more than 50 years: a launch to kick off a NASA program to send humans to the moon. A similar situation unfolded during the first launch attempt on Monday, Aug. 29.

The space agency’s attempt for a rescheduled launch of the crewless Orion capsule on Saturday afternoon was first halted at about 9 a.m. ET as engineers began attempting to fix a hydrogen fuel leak in the engine section at the rocket’s bottom.

When the launch team could not successfully stop the leak, NASA officials scrubbed the Saturday liftoff at about 11:20 a.m. EDT

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The NASA rocket had been set to launch the Artemis I mission on Monday from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, the same launch site that saw the Apollo missions send humans to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. 

When that attempt was delayed, NASA aimed for Saturday, which had a favorable weather forecast, for the next launch attempt.