Zee Media Bureau
Washington: The US company SpaceX was forced on Monday to call off its latest supply mission to the International Space Station because of a helium leak on its Dragon cargo capsule.
Just an hour before the Falcon 9 rocket was due to make a 16:58 local time (20:58 GMT) lift-off from the Kennedy Space Center, the company called a halt to proceedings.
While a new launch date has not been announced, the next opportunity would be Friday.
"Today`s launch is scrubbed due to a Helium leak on Falcon 9," SpaceX tweeted shortly before the planned blast-off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 4:58 pm (2058 GMT), adding that a fix would be implemented by the next launch opportunity on April 18.
Owned by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, SpaceX became the first commercial entity to reach the space station with its Dragon cargo ship in 2012.
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation each won a Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA. And that of SpaceX is for at least 12 missions for $1.6 billion to carry supplies and cargo to and from the ISS. Both contracts were awarded after the decision to retire NASA`s shuttle fleet.
With Agency Inputs
