Emirates Mars Mission postponed indefinitely due to bad weather

United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials, engineers and scientists take part in a ceremony to unveil UAE's Mars Mission on May 6, 2015 in Dubai (KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images)

The Emirates Mars Mission has been postponed indefinitely after bad weather at the launch site.

The launch had already been pushed back by two days because of bad conditions at the Japanese facility from which it was due to take off.

But now it has been delayed once again, with mission controllers committing to announce a new date in the next 24 hours.

The UAE's orbiter is one of three spacecraft bound for the red planet this month, alongside US and Chinese missions. All three are looking to take advantage of the favourable alignment of Mars, the Earth and the Sun which happens every 26 months.

If any of the missions miss that window in the coming weeks, they will be forced to wait until 2022 to try again.

“After extensive meetings, the UAE Space Agency and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center through discussions with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, have announced a further delay to the Mars Hope Probe launch due to unstable weather conditions at the launch site in Tanegashima Island, Japan," a spokesperson said. "A new launch date is due to be scheduled in the coming 24 hours.”

The UAE's launch was initially scheduled for Tuesday, 14 July, before being pushed back to the following Friday.

Nasa has already been forced to delay its launch of the Perseverance rover until the end of July. That has led to fears that any further delays – such as those caused by unpredictable weather conditions – could lead the mission to be pushed back to the next window.

China's spacecraft is due to launch around 23 July, but the country's space agency has said little about exactly when.