SpaceX finally got the weather conditions it was looking for, paving the way to a successful launch of a deep-space observatory from Cape Canaveral, Florida, just after 6 p.m. ET Wednesday.

But the mission didn’t totally go the way NASA and SpaceX had originally hoped. High waves and rough seas canceled the radical rocket-landing test. Waves reaching three stories high crashed over the landing-zone platform floating 370 miles off the Florida coast. Making matters worse, one of four engines needed to keep the platform steady was not working.

An artist's depiction of DSCOVR at its observation point 1 million miles from Earth.

(NOAA)

The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket holds the Deep Space Climate Observatory, a satellite dreamed up by former Vice President Al Gore 17 years ago. Gore planned to return again for the sunset send-off.

DSCOVR, as it’s referred, should reach its observing point 1 million miles from Earth .

Launching the observatory on its $340 million mission was the main event. It's the first deep-space mission for SpaceX.

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pulled Gore's sacked satellite out of storage nearly a decade ago, and retooled it to monitor solar outbursts while providing continuous pictures of the full, sunlit side of Earth.

The spacecraft will travel 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. There, it will provide advance warnings of incoming geomagnetic storms that could disrupt power and communications on Earth.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: Hubble's Incredible Images

April 24 marks the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope. To celebrate, NASA and the European Space Agency, which jointly run the telecope, released this image of the star cluster Westerlund 2. (NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team/A. Nota/Westerlund 2 Science Team)