Two hours after a Soyuz-Fregat rocket carrying the 4.1-tonne satellite MetOp-A lifted off from the Russian space base at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the agency (ESA) announced around 1830 GMT that the satellite had been put into its 850-kilometer (531-mile) orbit around the poles.

MetOp-A promptly deployed the built-in solar panel by which it will store energy to run itself as it circles the globe.

ESA officials in charge of the flight responded with relief at the announcement, which was relaid from a launch team based in Germany to their colleagues at the agency's Paris headquarters.

Five previous attempts to launch the six-metre-long new-generation satellite since July had been thwarted by technical hitches and poor weather.

MetOp-A is billed as the most sophisticated Earth-observation satellite ever built, with 13 instruments to record temperature, humidity, wind speed and ozone cover across the globe, monitor the environment in space and listen out for signals from ships and aircraft in distress.

Europe's current generation of weather satellites operates at geostationary orbit, providing snapshots of half of the Earth from a distance of 36,000 kilometres (22,500 miles).

MetOp will provide pictures of the entire globe, swinging around the poles in 101-minute orbits while the planet turns.

These images will be in much finer detail than those provided by geostationary satellites and should enable forecasters to speed up accurate medium-range forecasts by half a day, according to MetOp's operator, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

France's Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin hailed Thursday's launch, saying in a statement that it reflected the "particularly dynamic nature of European cooperation" in space exploration.

He highlighted what he called the "excellent cooperation" between his country and Russia in the field, hoping that this would "intensify in the years to come".

MetOp will operate in conjunction with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whose satellite will fly in a complementary orbit in order to maximise coverage.

Two other MetOp (Meteorological Operational) satellites will follow MetOp-A under a 2.4-billion-euro (three-billion-dollar) plan over the next 10 years. Together, they will provide EUMETSAT with data until 2020.

EUMETSAT has pledged three quarters of the cost, with the rest coming from the ESA.

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