NASA's moon megarocket is supposed to launch soon. Here's the holdup.

After a long weekend of tests, NASA managers are not ready to announce a launch date.

After making repairs to the rocket, the U.S. space agency tried a wet dress rehearsal of the SLS at the launchpad. The team was not able to fulfill all of its test goals despite officials hailing the effort as mostly successful.

A mix of metaphors was used by a deputy associate administrator for NASA to describe where this leaves the agency.

The test was pieces of a puzzle and a dance. He said during a call with reporters on Tuesday that they were looking at the pieces of the puzzle to see what they did not get. We have a good idea of what the puzzle will look like.

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The first US lunar mission since the Apollo era is being planned by NASA. The new spaceship will be sent around the moon without astronauts for the first time, then splash down in the ocean. The purpose of the flight is to demonstrate that the capsule can hit its target in the water before it carries humans.

It's been a long time since a rocket of this size was used by NASA. It's expected to one day put the first astronauts on Mars and is built to travel to the moon as well.

The first mission will be determined by the data from the test. They did not know if August was still on the table.

The purpose of the tests was to practice loading the fuel into the rocket. The plan was to run the clock down to nine seconds, but the team stopped at 29 seconds.

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The goals that were not achieved were not clearly defined. The 322-foot rocket will be rolled back to its warehouse if repairs are not made at the launchpad.

Bad valves, faulty fans, and leaks were discovered during previous wet dress rehearsals. The rocket was taken back to its storage facility for repairs.

John Honeycutt is the rocket manager. He made it clear that the public shouldn't be concerned about the mega moon rocket being unsafe.

"We will either have a successful launch or a scrub because we have protection in the system for those objectives that we didn't meet, should they not perform well on launch day," he said. Making the vehicle safer to fly is not one of the unmet objectives. They want to know if they can hit the launch target for the best window for the lunar mission.

The managers of NASA said that the spaceship performed well during the testing.