An unmanned Vega rocket blasted off from French Guiana on Monday to put a sophisticated Earth-watching satellite into orbit, a European Space Agency webcast showed.

Flying for the fifth time, the four-stage Vega rocket, lifted off at 1.52am GMT carrying Europe's Sentinel-2A satellite.

The satellite would enable the multibillion-euro Europe's Copernicus Earth observation project to deliver valuable images.

From its orbital perch 786 km above Earth, Sentinel-2A is designed to take high-resolution, color and infrared images for a wide array of environmental initiatives, including crop forecasting and monitoring natural disasters.

The first satellite of Europe's planned seven-member network launched in April 2014. Sentinel-1A is outfitted with radars that can monitor sea ice, oil spills and land use, even when skies are cloudy.

Sentinel-2A will operate in tandem with another satellite, Sentinal-2B, to be launched in late 2016.

Sentinel-2 is designed and built by a consortium of about 60 companies led by Airbus Defence and Space.

The European Union and the European Space Agency have committed funding of about €8.4 billion for the Copernicus program through 2020.

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