Italian satellite blasts off from California base

An Italian satellite launched in the US has reached space on a mission to image the Earth.

The COSMO satellite, developed for the Italian Space Agency and Italian Ministry of Defence, was boosted into orbit at 7.34pm local time yesterday (0334 Irish time Friday) after being launched aboard a Boeing rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The satellite, which carries a radar imager, will be part of a constellation of four orbiting probes that will collect data on floods, droughts, earthquakes and landslides. It is the first to be launched, and a second is expected to lift off from Vandenberg later this year.

Italian space officials expect the fully functional system to beam back up to 1,800 images of the Earth a day.