A new European weather satellite was launched successfully from the Kazakh Baikonur Cosmodrome today, after six previous attempts failed due to technical and weather-related problems.
The Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the satellite blasted off on schedule at 16:28 GMT, according to the satellite's operator EUMETSAT in Darmstadt, Germany.
Several previous launch attempts in July were scuppered by technical difficulties. A further attempt was aborted on Tuesday due to a problem with the ground control system and yesterday's planned launch was prevented by bad weather.
The satellite will go into a close polar orbit around the earth, meaning it will circle the globe every 90 minutes, gathering meteorological images and atmospheric data.