On the third try, the Deep Space Climate Observatory rose into the sky above Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Wednesday night atop a Falcon 9 rocket built by the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX.

A launch attempt on Sunday was called off with less than three minutes left in the countdown because of a malfunction with a ground radar system for tracking the rocket’s flight, and high-altitude winds forced the postponement of another attempt on Tuesday.

In about 110 days, the observatory, abbreviated as Dscovr and pronounced “discover,” is to reach a point where the gravitational pull of the Earth and that of the sun cancel each other out and the spacecraft can easily hold its position, almost a million miles from the day side of Earth.

From that location, Dscovr will be able to give 15 to 60 minutes’ warning if a wave of energetic solar particles known as a coronal mass ejection is about to slam into Earth. A gigantic solar storm, while rare, could disrupt communications satellites and knock out power grids.