street party kicks off its final day at the notting hill carnival in west london. nasa has cancelled today s launch of its most powerful rocket, artemis one, which had been due to take off for an uncrewed test flight to the moon. the us space agency said one of its engines had developed a bleed that couldn t be fixed in time; the next possible launch date is friday the second of september. the artemis programme aims to return humans to the moon. if successful, the plan is for astronauts to be on board the flight in two years time. our science correspondent, jonathan amos told us what went wrong. frustrating day today, ben, it really was. we had a number of little issues that cropped up. first of all, when we got here, it was pouring with rain and that delayed them tanking, putting all the propellants that they needed to go in this monster rocket over my shoulder. then they thought they had a crack halfway up the rocket, believe it or not, and decided that that was just frosti
taking up the habit. and after a two year pause due the pandemic, europe s largest street party kicks off its final day at the notting hill carnival in west london. nasa has cancelled today s launch of its most powerful rocket, artemis one, which had been due to take off for an uncrewed test flight to the moon. the us space agency said one of its engines had developed a bleed that couldn t be fixed in time; the next possible launch date is friday the second of september. the artemis programme aims to return humans to the moon. if successful, the plan is for astronauts to be on board the flight in two years time. our science correspondent, jonathan amos told us what went wrong frustrating day today, ben, it really was. we had a number of little issues that cropped up. when we got here, it was pouring with rain and that delayed them tanking, putting all the propellants that they needed to go in this monster rocket over my shoulder. then they thought they had a crack halfway up
a scrub, and as if to rub salt in the wound, just as they did that, we had this massive, great, big cloud move in from the left here. and that cloud would have been a no go constraint as well, so all aound, big frustration, but we are hoping them that we will be back on friday, that we will have another go. so keep your fingers crossed. just, jonathan, explain the wider significance of this mission because some viewers might say, well, hang on, we went to the moon half a century ago. what s all this about? yeah, indeed, and if you look at this rocket and the capsule that s on the top, you kind of say, well, it looks a bit like the saturn v and a bit like the apollo command module. and indeed they do, and part of that is because the physics has not changed in 50 years, you ll have noticed that, but believe me, there is a tremendous amount of new technology in these vehicles. much more lift on this rocket to put an awful lot more payload,
ben, it really was. we had a number of little issues that cropped up. first of all, when we got here, it was pouring with rain and that delayed them tanking, putting all the propellants that they needed to go in this monster rocket over my shoulder. then they thought they had a crack halfway up the rocket, believe it or not, and decided that that was just frosting. you know, these propellants are super, super cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and the air, the moisture in the air then condenses on the side of the rocket. but what really did it for us today was one of the four engines underneath the rocket is sort of a shuttle era engine, actually took them off the old shuttles, reconditioned them. one of them refused to go to the temperature, the operating temperature it would be required to work at, and so they called a scrub, and as if to rub salt in the wound, just as they did that, we had this massive, great, big cloud move