Yahoo Finance SpaceX and Nasa postpone launch of Crew Dragon spacecraft due to bad weather
SpaceX and Nasa were set to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft at 9:33pm UK time
The Falcon 9 rocket was due to lift off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, bound for the International Space Station
This would have been the first crewed launch from US soil since 2011
Nasa was forced to abort a planned mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday afternoon due to poor weather, delaying a historic event that would have marked the first crewed launch from US soil in almost a decade.
Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley boarded a Crew Dragon capsule built by Elon Musk's California-based company SpaceX with a view to taking off at 9.33pm UK time, but the mission was called off 17 minutes before the launch time.
Crews had begun to fuel the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the capsule before the decision was taken to cancel due to cloudy skies and rain. They are set to try the launch again on Saturday afternoon, with another backup time on Sunday.
Weather at Florida's Kennedy Space Centre was expected to clear 10 minutes after launch but due to the movements of the Space Station the possible launch window was "instantaneous", meaning any delay at all would have meant cancellation.
The countdown was otherwise smooth, with no technical issues identified on the spacecraft.
Mission Control thanked the two astronauts, who spent over two hours sitting in the capsule in their suits ahead of the launch time, for their "resilience".
"We can see some raindrops on the windows and figured that whatever it was was too close to the launchpad at a time when we needed it not to be," said Mr Hurley after the announcement.
The mission was the first crewed launch for SpaceX, and for Nasa's Commercial Crew Programme, which partners with private contractors to send astronauts to the ISS.
Rocket launches were once the preserve of nation states, but this launch is set to be the first in a new era of commercial flight where private companies develop the technology to send astronauts into space, with a view to eventually opening this up to the general public.
The US space agency last sent people to the ISS in 2011, and since then has relied on Russia's space programme to take its crews to and from the station, at a cost of as much as $86m (£70m) each time. It hopes the commercial crew programme will cut the price for initial launches to $55m.
Ahead of the launch, entrepreneur and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said the event was "a dream come true" and that the Falcon 9 was "a well-proven rocket".
US President Donald Trump had travelled on Air Force One to watch the event, also attended by vice-president Mike Pence.
