On Wednesday, SpaceX decided to postpone the scheduled Florida launch of a Falcon 9 rocket on a satellite-delivery mission and attempted return-landing at sea for at least 24 hours. The company said that the decision has been taken to allow additional time to chill the rocket's propellant.

SpaceX said that blast-off of the 23-story-tall booster and its payload, a SES SA communications satellite, has been delayed to 6:46 pm on Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

In a message posted on Twitter wherein the delay announcement was made, the company said that rocket and spacecraft stay healthy. A few hours ago, SpaceX had explained weather conditions at the launch site as ‘60% go’ and mentioned that it was tracking thick clouds and high winds.

Post delay, the company issued another statement saying, “The team opted to hold launch to ensure liquid oxygen temperatures are as cold as possible in an effort to maximize performance of the vehicle”.

The statement didn’t clearly mention how much, in case weather has played any role in the postponement.

According to meteorologists’ forecast there is 80% chance that weather would be right for liftoff on Thursday.

Besides boosting the 12,613-lb satellite created by Boeing Co toward orbit, the first stage of the rocket will try to turn around, making its way back to a platform floating in the Atlantic roughly 400 miles east of Cape Canaveral.

The mission is going to mark Space Exploration Technologies’ second of over 12 planned launches this year. SpaceX is the private rocket service owned and run by high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. This would be the fourth try at a sea-based return landing of the Falcon 9's main stage, a milestone in Musk's goal of coming up with a cheap and reusable booster.