NASA is making a second attempt to launch a rocket to the moon on Saturday

 NASA is seeking a second attempt next Saturday to launch a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to the moon, officials said yesterday, five days after two technical problems caused the cancellation of Monday's attempt.

The rocket, which is the length of a 32-story building, is scheduled to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, to send the Orion capsule on an unmanned six-week test flight around the moon and back to Earth.

The much-anticipated launch will launch NASA's Artemis program for flights from the Moon to Mars, the successor to the Apollo lunar missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

The first flight of the SLS system and Orion, a mission dubbed Artemis One, aims to put the craft on a test flight that will test its capabilities to the extreme, before NASA considers that it can rely on it enough to transport astronauts.

The first Artemis One launch attempt on Monday was called off after a cooling problem with one of the rocket's main stage engines, halting the countdown and delaying the attempt.

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