Launch of Envisat by Ariane 5

The eleventh Ariane 5G climbs into the black sky of French Guiana, heading North over the Atlantic Ocean shortly after its perfect liftoff from the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's spaceport, on 1 March 2002.

On this first flight toward a Sun-synchronous polar orbit, Ariane 5 successfully lofted ESA's Envisat polar platform into orbit.

The 8111 kg Envisat, largest and most sophisticated spacecraft ever built in Europe is dedicated to environmental monitoring and carries 10 main instruments to probe the Earth's atmosphere, lands and oceans.