MOSCOW, June 2. /TASS/. Europe’s Ariane 5 carrier rocket took off from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana on the South American coast, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianespace said in their Twitter accounts on Friday.

The launcher is to orbit two satellites, ViaSat-2 and Eutelsat 172B.

The heavy-lift Ariane 5 was first launched in 1979 and can carry payloads weighing more than 10 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit and over 20 tonnes into low-Earth orbit.