Moon Rocket: NASA To Attempt Launch Saturday

The US space agency says it will try to launch its new Moon rocket on Saturday.

An attempt at a lift-off on Monday had to be scrubbed when one of four engines on the vehicle would not cool down to its required operating temperature.

After reviewing data, engineers believe they now understand why the issue occurred.

They think it is likely related to an inaccurate sensor reading and that they can develop a strategy to deal with the problem on launch day.

This involves starting the process of chilling the engines earlier in the countdown.

“We’ve got a path forward to get to where we need to get to, to support the next launch,” said John Honeycutt, who manages the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket project at NASA.

Saturday’s launch will be timed for 14:17 local time (18:17 GMT; 19:17 BST) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Controllers will be given two hours to get the rocket off Earth.