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A SpaceX Falcon rocket has launched from Florida to put the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) in orbit, the BBC reports.

The satellite will be used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to monitor the Sun.

It will provide warnings on hazardous outbursts from our star.

The Sun can hurl vast clouds of charged particles and radiation towards Earth, disrupting a range of critical services from GPS to electricity distribution.

"DSCOVR will serve as our 'tsunami buoy in space', if you will, giving forecasters up to an hour's warning on the arrival of the huge magnetic eruptions from the Sun that occasionally occur called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)," explained Tom Berger, the director of Noaa's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

"CMEs are the cause of the largest geomagnetic storms at Earth, some of which can severely disrupt our technological society, causing loss of communications with aircraft, particularly those flying over the poles; damage to satellites in orbit; and even damage to power grid equipment on the ground."