PHOTOS: Vega's dawn blastoff

ESA photographer Stephane Corvaja snapped these photos of the 98-foot Vega rocket on the day of its first mission in Kourou, French Guiana.

The four-stage rocket lifted off at 1000 GMT (5 a.m. EST; 7 a.m. local time), just after sunrise at the South America spaceport. Aerial photos captured from a helicopter show the rocket igniting and flying downrange in the seconds after blastoff.

Photo credit: ESA/S. Corvaja

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