WATCH: NASA scrubs Artemis I launch to moon after fuel leaks

Fuel leaks have forced NASA to scrub the Artemis I launch that was destined for moon.

NASA says the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft remain in a safe and stable configuration.

“Launch controllers were continuing to evaluate why a bleed test to get the RS-25 engines on the bottom of the core stage to the proper temperature range for lift-off was not successful, and ran out of time in the two-hour launch window.”

“Engineers are continuing to gather additional data,” NASA said.

The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest

The massive orange-and-white 322-foot Space Launch System rocket was set to lift off Monday morning with three test dummies aboard its first flight, a mission to propel a capsule into orbit around the moon.

It has been sitting on the space centre’s Launch Complex 39B for a week.

The Associated Press (AP) reports as precious minutes ticked away, NASA repeatedly stopped and started the fuelling of the Space Launch System rocket with nearly 1 million gallons of super-cold hydrogen and oxygen because of a leak.

The fuelling already was running nearly an hour late because of thunderstorms off Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

The leak of highly explosive hydrogen appeared in the same place that saw seepage during a dress rehearsal back in the spring.

Then a second apparent hydrogen leak turned up in a valve that had caused trouble in June but that NASA thought it had fixed, officials said.

The launch was set to lift off on a mission fifty years after the last Apollo mission, on the maiden voyage to take humans to the Moon, and eventually to Mars.

The capsule will orbit the Moon to see if the vessel is safe for people in the near future and at some point, see a woman and a person of colour walk on the Moon for the first time.