The launch of Japan's XRISM spacecraft has been postponed, a statement from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has said.
Over the past weekend, space fans were eagerly awaiting the launch of XRISM, a new spacecraft that will observe the hottest, most chaotic known places in the Universe.
XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) had been scheduled to launch from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on 28 August, but weather conditions caused the launch to be called off.
JAXA said the postponement of the XRISM launch was because "upper winds did not meet the launch conditions."
"The new launch date and time will be announced once confirmed."
The mission is a joint venture between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA, with participation from the European Space Agency (ESA).
JAXA is livestreaming the event, which you can watch at the bottom of this article.
What will XRISM do?
“X-ray astronomy enables us to study the most energetic phenomena in the Universe," says Matteo Guainazzi, ESA project scientist for XRISM.
"It holds the key to answering important questions in modern astrophysics
"How the largest structures in the Universe evolve, how the matter we are ultimately composed of was distributed through the cosmos.
"And how galaxies are shaped by massive black holes at their centres."
“With current instruments, we’re only capable of seeing these fingerprints in a comparatively blurry way,” says Brian Williams, NASA’s XRISM project scientist.
“Resolve will effectively give X-ray astrophysics a spectrometer with a magnifying glass.”
XRISM is expected to shed light on exploding stars (supernovae), black holes and their host galaxies, and galaxy clusters.
You can find out more about the science behind the spacecraft in our guide to the XRISM mission.
And you can watch the livestream of the XRISM launch below.
What the XRISM launch live
Find out more via the JAXA XRISM webpage.
