With THE TYPE CONNECTION (AP) — NASA was targeting a new moon rocket launch Saturday after fixing fuel leaks and working around a bad engine sensor that failed the first attempt. The inaugural flight of the 322-foot rocket — the most powerful ever built by NASA — slowly delayed Monday’s countdown. Kennedy Space Center clocks started ticking again as managers expressed confidence in their plan and forecasters gave favorable weather chances. 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 squeeze the spacecraft before it welcomes astronauts on its next scheduled flight in two years. “This is a test flight, right? And so while I feel really good about our procedures, when you look the team in the eye, they’re ready. We can’t control the weather,” NASA’s Jeremy Parsons, associate director of ground systems exploration, he said Friday. Engineers in charge of the Space Launch System rocket insisted Thursday night that all four main engines were fine and that a faulty temperature sensor made one of them appear to be too hot Monday. The engines must match the minus-420 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-250 degrees Celsius) of the liquid hydrogen fuel at startup, or they could be damaged and shut down in flight. “We’ve convinced ourselves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have good quality liquid hydrogen going through the engines. There’s no doubt about that,” said John Honeycutt, the rocket’s program manager. Once fueling begins Saturday morning, the launch team will perform another engine test — this time earlier in the countdown. Even if that suspect sensor indicates that one engine is too hot, they could rely on other sensors to make sure everything is working properly and to stop the countdown if there’s a problem, Honeycutt told reporters. NASA was unable to perform this type of engine test during dress rehearsals earlier this year due to a fuel leak. More fuel leaks were cut on Monday. the technicians found some loose connections and tightened them. The $4.1 billion test flight is NASA’s first step toward sending astronauts around the Moon in 2024 and landing them on the surface in 2025. Astronauts last walked on the moon in 1972. —— The Associated Press Health and Science Section is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Division. AP is solely responsible for all content
