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A technical hitch has delayed New Zealand's bid to join the space race.
The launch by New Zealand aerospace company Rocket Lab of Atea-1 from Great Mercury Island, off the Coromandel Peninsula, was scheduled for 7.10am but put on hold due to a fuel problem.
At 7.42am, 32 minutes after it was due to lift off, the rocket still sat on its launch pad with white vapour pouring from it.
It is understood that there had been a problem with nitrous oxide causing a coupling to freeze.
Rocket Lab say they are still hoping to launch the rocket sometime on Monday afternoon.
Rocket Lab technical director Peter Beck says it's incredibly frustrating as it's been tested in the lab 100 times before.
If successful, it would be the first time in the southern hemisphere a privately owned company had launched a rocket to space.
The company started up three years ago with the aim to develop a series of Atea rockets that would make space more accessible, company director Mark Rocket said last week.
"This is the first step in a long journey," he said.
Atea is the Maori word for space as the team wanted an indigenous name for the rockets.
The first rocket Atea-1 has been named Manu Karere by the local Thames iwi, which means Bird Messenger.
The 5 metre long rocket, with a maximum diameter of 150 millimetres, was expected to travel at Mach 5 to an altitude of 120 kilometres - 20km on from where space starts - then return to Earth in a sub-orbital ballistic arc, to be recovered from the sea.
The cost of the project has been mainly met through private investment from Rocket Lab, although it has received some funding from the Government and a number of agencies around New Zealand.
Beck said Atea-1 had a 2kg payload capacity.
The project would give the global scientific community the first
practical alternative to conventional rockets at significantly
lower cost, as it could carry miniature scientific equipment.
