By Joe Skipper and Steve Gorman

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) -The deliberate launch of a robotic moon lander constructed by Houston-based aerospace firm Intuitive Machines was known as off lower than two hours earlier than Wednesday’s liftoff time and postponed for at the very least a day, launch contractor SpaceX mentioned on Tuesday evening.

SpaceX, the non-public rocket and satellite tv for pc firm based by billionaire Elon Musk, mentioned on the social media platform X that the launch staff was “standing down from tonight’s try” due to irregular methane temperatures earlier than loading.

The exact operate of the methane and its implications for the correct operate of the Falcon 9 rocket weren’t instantly defined. The rocket’s Merlin engines run on kerosene and liquid oxygen.

The choice to clean the Intuitive Machines flight, which had been set for liftoff at 12:57 a.m. EST on Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart at Cape Canaveral, Florida, happened 75 minutes earlier than launch time.

SpaceX mentioned it might goal for the following launch alternative for the uncrewed mission, which is slated for 1:05 a.m. EST on Thursday.

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, dubbed Odysseus, stays poised atop the Falcon 9 rocket for a mission aimed toward conducting the primary U.S. lunar landing for the reason that final Apollo moon mission a half century in the past, and the primary by a privately owned car.

The feat additionally would mark the primary journey to the lunar floor beneath NASA’s Artemis moon program, as the USA races to return astronauts to Earth’s pure satellite tv for pc earlier than China lands its personal crewed spacecraft there.

The launch comes a month after the lunar lander of one other non-public agency, Astrobotic Know-how, suffered a propulsion system leak on its strategy to the moon shortly after being positioned in orbit on Jan. 8 by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket making its debut flight.

The failure of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, which was additionally on a NASA mission, marked the third time a non-public firm had been unable to attain a “tender touchdown” on the lunar floor, following ill-fated efforts by firms from Israel and Japan.

These mishaps illustrate the dangers NASA faces in leaning extra closely on the business sector than it had previously to appreciate its spaceflight targets.

The newest IM-1 flight is taken into account a Intuitive Machines mission, thought is carrying six NASA payloads of devices designed to collect information in regards to the lunar atmosphere forward of a NASA Artemis mission to return astronauts to the moon for the primary time since 1972.

If the four-legged Odysseus lander will get off the bottom this week, plans name for it to achieve its vacation spot on Feb. 22 for a touchdown at crater Malapert A close to the moon’s south pole.