NASA aims for Saturday launch of new moon rocket

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA aimed for a Saturday launch of its new moon rocket, after fixing fuel leaks and working around a bad engine sensor that foiled the first try.

The inaugural flight of the 322-foot rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — was delayed late in the countdown Monday.

The Kennedy Space Center clocks started ticking again as managers expressed confidence in their plan and forecasters gave favorable weather odds.

Atop the rocket is a crew capsule with three test dummies that will fly around the moon and back over the course of six weeks — NASA's first such attempt since the Apollo program 50 years ago.

NASA wants to wring out the spacecraft before strapping in astronauts on the next planned flight in two years.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he's more confident going into this second launch attempt, given everything engineers learned from the first try.

The engineers in charge of the Space Launch System rocket insisted Thursday evening all four of the rocket's main engines were good and that a faulty temperature sensor caused one of them to appear as if it were too warm Monday.

“We have convinced ourselves without a shadow of a doubt that we have good-quality liquid hydrogen going through the engines,” said John Honeycutt, the rocket's program manager.

Collins Aerospace, Cedar Rapids’ largest employer, signed a contract with Lockheed Martin in 2020 to provide systems to support NASA’s Orion spacecraft fleet for Artemis missions III through VIII, the avionics company said on its website.

The Orion spacecraft will carry astronauts in later missions. The contract was valued at $320 million, according to the company.

Collins Aerospace, along with two other companies, also is designing NASA’s next-generation spacesuit for astronauts.

Saturday’s $4.1 billion test flight is NASA's first step in sending astronauts around the moon in 2024 and landing them on the surface in 2025.

Astronauts last walked on the moon in 1972.