Launching with two communications satellites to broadcast television to Brazilian homes and connect the islands of Indonesia, an Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from a space base at the northern edge of the Amazon jungle Tuesday, the first of seven planned flights by the European-built booster this year.
The Ariane 5 ECA, towering 180 feet (55 meters) tall, lifted off at 2139 GMT (4:39 p.m. EST; 6:39 p.m. French Guiana time) Tuesday atop 2.9 million pounds of thrust from its Vulcain 2 main engine and two solid rocket boosters.
The Sky Brasil 1 and Telkom 3 communications satellites were deployed into an on-target orbit less than 40 minutes after liftoff.
Read our full story on the launch for details.
The images below were captured by remote cameras near the ELA-3 launch zone, from the Toucan viewing site around 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the pad, and from Hotel des Roches in nearby Kourou, French Guiana.
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