Plesetsk Cosmodrome

Check out photos of Wednesday’s launch of a Russian Rockot booster, derived from a decommissioned Soviet-era nuclear missile, with Europe’s Sentinel 3B Earth observation satellite.

A new European satellite carrying instruments to track changes in the world’s oceans, measure receding ice sheets and chart vegetation growth climbed into orbit Wednesday on top of a Russian Rockot launcher.

Europe’s Sentinel 3B environmental satellite was shipped to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia’s far northern Arkhangelsk region in March for a month-long campaign to prepare the spacecraft for liftoff aboard a Rockot launcher.