NASA aims for Saturday launch of new moon rocket after fixes

NASA is counting down toward a Saturday launch of its new moon rocket, its second attempt in a week

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 (98-meter) 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.

So is astronaut Jessica Meir, who's on NASA's short list for one of the initial moon crews.

“We're all excited for this to go, but the most important thing is that we go when we're ready and we get it right, because the next missions will have humans on board. Maybe me, maybe my friends," Meir told The Associated Press on Friday.

The engineers in charge of the Space Launch System rocket insisted Thursday evening that all four of the rocket's main engines were good and that a faulty temperature sensor caused one of them to appear as though it were too warm Monday. The engines need to match the minus-420 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-250 degrees Celsius) of the liquid hydrogen fuel at liftoff, otherwise they could be damaged and shut down in flight.