The launch has now been postponed after a fault was detected with a valve component on the rocket’s second stage. The next attempt has been rescheduled for Monday 17 February, the company said.
The Californian-based spaceflight firm was meant to launch its internet-beaming satellites on the previously flown Falcon 9 rocket at 10:25am EST (3:25pm GMT) on Sunday.
The launch would have been from the Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
However, an issue with the rocket caused the company to take safety precaution methods and delay for 24hours while they worked to fix the problem.
Writing on twitter, SpaceX said: “Standing down from tomorrow’s Starlink launch.
It also completed a successful telecommunications satellite in December.
Should the imminent launch be successful, the rocket is expected to touch down on SpaceX’s drone ship landing platform, dubbed, “Of Course I Still Love You”, in the Atlantic Ocean.
This will make the company’s 50th booster recovery.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is attempting to recover the payload faring and has deployed both of its nose-cone catching ships to the recovery zone.
This is an expensive task, as each fairing comes with a $3million price tag.
The company says if GO Ms Tree and GO Ms Chief (SpaceX’s landing platforms) can snag falling fairings, it will be able to refurbish them with minimal effort and fly them again.
This will ultimately drive down launch costs, SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, said.
To date, GO Ms Tree has three successful catches.
GO Ms. Chief is still waiting for its first.
As of 8 February, 2020, SpaceX has launched 242 Starlink satellites.
In total, nearly 12,000 satellites will be deployed, with a possible later extension to 42,000.
The eventual goal of the project is to blanket Earth in easy to access, affordable, fast internet – even in the most remote of places.