Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

An optical reconnaissance satellite for the French military took off atop a Soyuz launcher Tuesday, riding the Russian-made rocket from a tropical spaceport in South America into a 300-mile-high polar orbit to begin a 10-year mission surveying the globe.

A Moroccan military reconnaissance satellite secretly built in France lifted off Tuesday night aboard a European Vega rocket in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch occurred at 8:42 p.m. EST (0142 GMT).

Russian technicians rolled a Soyuz rocket from its integration hangar to the launch pad in French Guiana on Tuesday morning, positioning the booster to receive two Galileo navigation satellites ahead of liftoff Friday.