KOUROU - The European Space Agency's JUICE space probe blasted off Friday on a mission to discover whether Jupiter's icy moons are capable of hosting extraterrestrial life in their vast, hidden oceans.
The launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana came after a previous attempt on Thursday was called off due to the risk of lightning.
Despite cloudy skies, the rocket took off as planned, with teams on site saying it was on the correct trajectory.
A little under half an hour after lift-off, the uncrewed six-tonne spacecraft is scheduled to separate from the rocket at an altitude of 1,500 kilometres. Only then can the launch be declared successful.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) plans to take a long and winding path to the gas giant, which is 628 million kilometres from Earth.
It will use several gravitational boosts along the way, first by doing a fly-by of Earth and the Moon, then by slingshotting around Venus in 2025 before swinging past Earth again in 2029.
When the probe finally enters Jupiter's orbit in July 2031, its 10 scientific instruments will analyse the Solar System's largest planet as well as its three icy moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.