SpaceX launches deep-space weather observatory: NASA

SpaceX launched an observatory inspired by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore toward a solar-storm lookout point a million miles away Wednesday. The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on the third try in four days, hoisting the spacecraft for NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Air Force. Gore — who dreamed up the idea for an environmentally conscious, Earth-gazing satellite 17 years ago — returned for the sunset launch. He was at the previous two attempts as well, eager to see his brainchild finally soar.

The Falcon takes flight, propelling the Deep Space Climate Observatory on a million mile journey to protect the planet Earth.

NASA commentator George Diller

DSCOVR will spend nearly four months traveling 1 million miles, four times farther than the moon, to the so-called Lagrange point, a gravity-neutral position in direct line with the sun. At this lookout location, 92 million miles from the sun, it will provide advance warnings of incoming geomagnetic storms that could disrupt power and communications on Earth, beginning around midsummer. The steady stream of Earth pictures, meanwhile, is expected to be high on the “wow” factor. The observatory’s camera will provide the first snapshots of the entire home planet, its full face lit by the sun, since NASA’s final Apollo moon-landing in 1972.

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