NASA will try again at Kennedy Space Center to launch next-generation lunar rocket:

NASA's launch team at Kennedy Space Center in Florida tried again Saturday (September 3) to launch the next-generation Artemis lunar rocket. Engineers hope they have dealt with the technical issues that prevented the first launch five days ago. It's NASA's attempt to return to the moon to recreate the splendor of sending astronauts to the moon decades ago.

Reuters reported that launch controllers began refueling the 32-story Space Launch System SLS rocket early Saturday morning. Fifty years after the Apollo moon landings in the 1960s, the launch will kick-start NASA's ambitious Moon-Mars "Artemis Program."

The countdown to Monday's launch was suspended for technical reasons. Subsequent tests showed that engineers had fixed the leaking fuel line.

Weather is also a factor out of NASA's control, but the latest weather forecast indicates a 70 percent favorable launch window during the two-hour launch window.

If successful on Saturday, it will orbit the moon and return to Earth on October 11, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. If the launch is unsuccessful, NASA has an alternate launch date, September 5, two days later.

The launch mission, named Project Artemis 1, marked the first flight of the Space Launch System and the Orion capsule. This is also a major directional change for NASA in the era of the post-Apollo manned space flight program. NASA's "Project Artemis" hopes to return humans to the moon by 2025. For decades, NASA had focused on low-Earth orbit spacecraft and the International Space Station.

If the "Artemis I" mission is successful, "Artemis II" will fly around the moon and return as early as 2024. Finally, "Project Artemis III" will carry astronauts to the moon, including a female astronaut.

NASA's newest Space Launch System, the SLS, is the world's most complex and powerful rocket to date, and NASA's largest vertical launch system since the Apollo-era Saturn V rocket.