US space agency technicians working against the clock to correct ‘engine bleed’ in time for possible rescheduled lift-off on Friday

Nasa scrubbed the first launch attempt of Artemis 1, the US space agency’s first human-rated moon rocket in 50 years, on Monday because of an “engine bleed” that halted the countdown 40 minutes before lift-off.

Engineers at Nasa’s launch complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida, discovered the issue with one of the four core-stage engines of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket during overnight loading of 2.76m litres (730,000 gallons) of liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel needed to send the spacecraft off on its 1.3m-mile, 42-day journey to the far side of the moon and back.