Nasa SpaceX launch - as it happened: Historic liftoff cancelled moments before takeoff over weather
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Nasa has postponed its first launch of astronauts from US soil in nine years due to bad weather, just minutes before lift-off.
Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley were due to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) on a rocket and capsule system built by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's firm SpaceX.
But with rain and thunderstorms looming, the launch date has now been moved to Saturday at 20:22 pm UK time.
An estimated 1.7 million people from around the world tuned in to the launch from The Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
However, as the weather conditions became worse, the US space agency "scrubbed" the mission for safety reasons less than 17 minutes before the Falcon 9 rocket was due to take off, along with the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Please allow a moment for the live blog to load
Here's Air Force One – with Donald Trump on board – coming into land at the Shuttle Landing Facility and presumably getting an incredible view of the rocket and its launchpad.
That weather is still looking very threatening. Here's a photo from nearby.
And here are radar pictures that tell a similar story.
Jim Bridenstine, who has been Nasa administrator for nearly three years, described the joint effort with SpaceX to send astronauts into low-Earth orbit as a "monumental achievement".
Speaking ahead of the launch, he said: "We have had challenges. We have had setbacks. We have seen catastrophic losses of capsules and challenges with parachutes on the ground.
"But that's what is unique about SpaceX. SpaceX can do things that Nasa historically has not done."
He added: "We are ready to go. But if you had told me two years ago we would be right here I might have even been questioning it then. But this is a monumental achievement.
"It is a Herculean task by the SpaceX team, which we are very grateful for, and also by the Nasa team, that has been working hand-in-glove with them to get to this point.
Everything's running very quickly. We're 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
We're about 75 minutes away from launch. That will happen at 4.33pm local time, or 9.33pm in the UK.
Johnson Space Center in Houston – which of course doesn't have as much of a role to play here, given that it's SpaceX controlling the mission, but still has to ensure that everything is OK with the International Space Station and more – says that it is "go".
JSC and everyone else is still watching the weather to see if it will allow a launch today.
The weather is still causing problems. While the earlier concerns about lightning have lifted, there are worried about the clouds.
So we're "no go" on that basis for now. But that might change as we progress towards launch.
center no-repeat #999999;cursor:pointer;background-size: 9px 10px;top:-8px; border-radius: 2px;">↵ Here's Nasa's live feed of the launch:
There might even be the chance to see the rocket from the ground too. Instructions on that are here:
Clear skies mean people will be able to catch the Falcon 9 rocket soar over the skies of the UK on Wednesday
Here's Donald Trump on his tour of Kennedy Space Center earlier.
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