Video: SpaceX Falcon 9 countdown aborted

Giving every opportunity for the storm clouds to blow clear after a four-hour hold, the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket counts down Thursday afternoon at Cape Canaveral until the clocks had to be halted for the day.

SpaceX says it is giving up on landing the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after Wednesday’s launch of a NOAA space weather observatory due to rough seas in the booster recovery zone off Florida’s East Coast.

Unfavorable high-altitude winds above Cape Canaveral on Tuesday kept a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket loaded with a NOAA space weather observatory on the ground another day.