Turkey

A European-built, Turkish-owned spy satellite rocketed into orbit Monday aboard a Vega booster launched from French Guiana, part of a $300 million project to feed improved surveillance imagery to the Turkish military and advance the country’s aerospace manufacturing base.

Turkey’s most advanced Earth observation satellite will ride a four-stage Vega rocket into polar orbit nearly 435 miles above Earth to begin collecting high-resolution images for Turkish military and security authorities.