The Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite is scheduled to launch on January 29, 2015. It will orbit between the Earth and the Sun a million miles away, monitoring space weather and taking images of the Earth. Image courtesy NASA.

On January 29, NOAA, the U.S. Air Force and NASA plan to launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite, which will orbit the Earth from a distance of one million miles, measuring increased magnetic fields and particle fluxes from solar storms. Positioned between the Earth and the Sun, the satellite will act like an ocean buoy in space, warning scientists about incoming solar storms, said Doug Biesecker at the National Weather Services Space Weather Prediction Center.

For scientists watching, the launch will represent the end of a long wait. Known by its acronym, DSCOVR, the satellite has been in storage at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center since 2001. DSCOVRs journey to space has taken more than a decade, mired in political controversy and tragic timing, said Ghassem R. Asrar, formerly NASAs chief earth scientist and currently director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute, which studies solutions to global climate change.

In 1998, then-Vice President Al Gore approached NASA with an idea: a satellite that would take continuous photos of the Earth from the first LaGrange Point, or L1, one million miles from Earth. He hoped that the continuous stream of photos would encourage the public to care about Earths fragile environment. He cited Apollo 17s famous Blue Marble image as inspiration.

At the time, Asrar saw the potential for much more. NASAs space weather satellite, ACE, which was already located at L1, needed to be replaced. A new satellite at that orbit could provide better forecasting for solar storms that knock out electricity grids and communication systems on Earth.

After further discussions with Gore, NASA scientists dreamt up a satellite that would revolutionize climate science, said Adam Szabo, NASAs project scientist for the mission. From that vantage point, scientists could image an entire sunlit side of the Earth in a 2048 by 2048 pixel image every two hours in visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. A three-color camera would capture the Earths ozone, cloud patterns, dust from the Sahara desert or vegetation growing around the world, Szabo said. At a million miles away, scientists could compare how the seasons change from year to year.

Low Earth orbiting satellites have to stitch together images, he said. It can take a full day to piece together a full image of the Earth. From L1you can start to study things like global cloud pattern changes. You can see large-scale weather systems as they change in a day.

We could predict where the next famine around the world would be before the next harvest begins, he added.

The satellite would also measure how much solar radiation was being absorbed and reflected by the Earth, a key to understanding global warming, Szabo said. It would be like a thermometer for the entire planet, he said.

The scientific possibilities were exciting, and the mission would open up opportunities for education and communication about earth science, Asrar said.

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Politics delayed Al Gores favorite satellite for 10 years, but in two weeks, itll fly