High winds on Tuesday prevented NASA’s New Horizons unmanned spacecraft from launching its mission to Pluto, an icy world that is the last unexplored planet in the solar system.

The space agency is sending the automated spacecraft, which is the size of a piano, to study Pluto and its moon Charon. It will also explore the nearby mysterious zone of the solar system called the Kuiper Belt, believed to hold thousands of comets and other icy objects.

Tuesday’s countdown to launch from an Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla. was delayed several times as NASA officials waited for winds to subside.

They then scrubbed the launch, saying they will try again in 24 hours.

Despite the rocket’s power, it will take at least 9.5 years for the 478-kilogram probe to complete its five billion kilometre journey.

New Horizons will arrive at Jupiter in 13 months, where it will take advantage of the planet’s gravity to boost its speed, cutting the length of the trip by five years.

Mission scientists won’t start to receive data about Pluto until July 2015.”To make a decision to work in the field of space science is almost the ultimate in delayed gratification,” NASA administrator Michael Griffin told a pre-launch news conference Tuesday.

New Horizons will explore the Kuiper Belt region of icy, rocky objects so scientists can learn more about the formation of planets.