Posted: Thu, Oct 19, 2006, 10:06 PM ET (0206 GMT)
A Soyuz rocket successfully launched Europe's first low Earth orbit weather satellite on Thursday after numerous delays. The Soyuz 2 rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 12:28 pm EDT (1628 GMT) and released the MetOp-A satellite into a Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit a little over an hour after liftoff. The launch of the spacecraft had been delayed several times since this summer by technical and weather problems, including a last-minute faulty sensor reading that scrubbed a launch attempt Tuesday and high upper-level winds on Wednesday. The 4,000-kg satellite is Europe's first LEO weather satellite that will work in cooperation with the existing fleet of US polar-orbiting satellites; MetOp-A carries a number of "heritage" instruments from NOAA similar to those on its own weather satellites, in addition to "new-generation" European instruments.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article
•  Spaceflight Now article
•  BBC article
•  RIA Novosti article
•  ESA press release