Live coverage: Two satellites lift off aboard Ariane 5

A new satellite to monitor crops, pollution and the growth of cities blasted off Monday from a tropical spaceport in French Guiana, adding another piece to Europe’s multibillion-dollar fleet of spacecraft tasked to track Earth’s ever-changing environment.

After a two-day delay caused by unfavorable high-altitude winds, an Ariane 5 rocket lifted off Saturday at 3:40 p.m. EST (2040 GMT) from French Guiana with communications satellites for DirecTV and India.

A Russian Proton rocket lifted off Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the AsiaSat 9 satellite destined to provide television broadcast, video networking and data delivery services over the Asia-Pacific region. Launch occurred at 1852:16 GMT (2:52:16 p.m. EDT), beginning a series of maneuvers expected to last nine hours before AsiaSat 9 is deployed from the rocket.