[5] DSCOVR was originally proposed as an Earth observation spacecraft positioned at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, providing live video of the sunlit side of the planet through the Internet as well as scientific instruments to study climate change.

[1] DSCOVR began as a proposal in 1998 by then-Vice President Al Gore for the purpose of whole-Earth observation at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, 1.5×10^6 km (0.93×10^6 mi) from Earth.

Gore hoped not only to advance science with these images, but also to raise awareness of the Earth itself, updating the influential Blue Marble photograph that was taken by Apollo 17.

[3] The US$150 million [3] spacecraft was placed into nitrogen blanketed storage at Goddard Space Flight Center in November 2001 and remained there for the duration of the Bush administration.

[11] In November 2008, funded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force, the spacecraft was removed from storage and underwent testing to determine its viability for launch.

[11] Part of this funding was to allow the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to construct a coronal mass ejection imager for the spacecraft, but the time required would have delayed DSCOVR's launch and it was ultimately not included.

In the 2017 documentary, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, Al Gore speaks of the history of the DSCOVR spacecraft and its relation to climate change.

The main science instrument sets are the Sun-observing Plasma Magnetometer (PlasMag) and the Earth-observing NIST Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR) and Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC).

[21] From its vantage point, DSCOVR monitors variable solar wind conditions, provides early warning of approaching coronal mass ejections and observes phenomena on Earth, including changes in ozone, aerosols, dust and volcanic ash, cloud height, vegetation cover and climate.

After the spacecraft arrived on-site and entered its operational phase, NASA began releasing near-real-time images of Earth through the EPIC instrument's website.

Because solar particles reach L1 about an hour before Earth, PlasMag can provide a warning of 15 to 60 minutes before a coronal mass ejection (CME) arrives.

It does this by measuring "the magnetic field and the velocity distribution functions of the electron, proton and alpha particles (helium nuclei) of solar wind".

It took DSCOVR 110 days from when it left Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Florida, to reach its target destination 1.5×10^6 km (0.93×10^6 mi) away from Earth at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point.

[32][33] On 6 July 2015, DSCOVR returned its first publicly released view of the entire sunlit side of Earth from 1,475,207 km (916,651 mi) away, taken by the EPIC instrument.

DSCOVR will usually be able to provide a 15- to 60-minute warning before a surge of particles and magnetic field from a coronal mass ejection (CME) reaches Earth and creates a geomagnetic storm.

[37] On 27 June 2019, DSCOVR was put into safe mode due to an anomaly with the laser gyroscope of the Miniature Inertial Measurement Unit (MIMU), part of the spacecraft's attitude control system.