CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida –
For
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP) – NASA was on target for a Saturday launch of its new moon rocket, after fixing fuel leaks and working around a bad engine sensor that thwarted the first attempt.
The maiden flight of the 322-foot rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA, was delayed Monday at the end of the countdown. Clocks at the Kennedy Space Center 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 return over the course of six weeks — NASA’s first attempt since the Apollo program 50 years ago. NASA wants to wipe out the spacecraft before placing astronauts on its next scheduled flight in two years.
“This is a test flight, right? And so while I feel very 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, deputy manager of ground exploration systems, he said Friday.
Engineers responsible for the Space Launch System rocket insisted Thursday evening that all four main engines were fine and that a faulty temperature sensor made one of them appear to be overheating Monday. The engines must match the minus -420 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-250 degrees Celsius) of the liquid hydrogen fuel at takeoff, otherwise they could be damaged and shut down in flight.
“We’ve been convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have good quality liquid hydrogen going through the engines. There’s no fluff,” said John Honeycutt, the rocket’s program manager.
Once fueling begins Saturday morning, the launch team will conduct another engine test, this time before the countdown. Even if that suspect sensor indicates an engine is overheating, other sensors could be relied on to make sure everything is working properly and stop the countdown if there’s a problem, Honeycutt told reporters.
NASA was unable to perform this type of engine test during general tests earlier this year due to fuel leaks. More fuel leaks emerged on Monday; 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.
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