Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Monday called off a highly anticipated launch of its powerful new Starship rocket, delaying the first uncrewed test flight of the vehicle into space.

The two-stage rocketship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 120 metres high, originally was scheduled for blast-off from the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica, Texas, during a two-hour launch window that began at 8am EDT (1200 GMT).

But the California-based space company announced in a live webcast during the final minutes of the countdown that it was scrubbing the flight attempt for at least 48 hours, citing a pressurization issue in the lower-stage rocket booster.

Musk, the company’s chief executive, told a private Twitter audience on Sunday night that the mission stood a better chance of being scrubbed than proceeding to launch on Monday. Getting the vehicle to space for the first time would represent a key milestone in SpaceX’s ambition of sending humans back to the moon.