Planned SpaceX launch scrubbed again, this time for winds

"Extreme wind shear over Cape Canaveral," Musk, chief executive officer of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., tweeted earlier. "Feels like a sledgehammer when supersonic in the vertical. Hope it changes."

The Falcon 9 was to carry DSCOVR, a refrigerator-sized satellite intended to monitor solar weather that is a joint project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Air Force. Mission control called a "no go" minutes before the scheduled 6:05 p.m. launch from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Tuesday marked the second time the launch had been scrubbed. A liftoff planned Feb. 8 was pushed back because of issues with Air Force radar tracking. In addition to the DSCOVR mission, SpaceX is attempting to land its first-stage rocket booster on a barge in the ocean, a critical step toward being able to reuse the company's rockets.

Tuesday was a busy day for the company. Dragon, its cargo spacecraft, was released from the International Space Station's robotic arm at 2:10 p.m. New York time and splashed down more than five hours later in the Pacific Ocean, southwest of Long Beach, California, the company said in a Twitter posting.

The launch of the DSCOVR mission has been rescheduled for 6:03 p.m. New York time Wednesday.