Nasa SpaceX launch roundup: Flight CANCELLED minutes before Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley sent to the ISS

HISTORY was postponed today after the first ever crewed space launch by a private company - Elon Musk's SpaceX - was canceled due to bad weather.

American astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley were due to fire into orbit aboard a spaceship built by the Tesla founder's California rocket firm.

The pair were going to spend 24 hours in orbit before docking with the International Space Station roughly 250 miles above Earth.

However, nature had plans of its own.

a tornado warning was issued a stone's throw away from where the  rocket was scheduled to leave.

As the rocket had an "instantaneous" launch window, the mission had to be aborted, and was rescheduled for Saturday at 3.23pm ET.

Here are the latest highlights from the aborted launch.