Replay of the Swarm launch event with footage from the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, and from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Russia, where the three Swarm satellites lifted off on a Rockot launcher on 22 November 2013.

The launch event includes welcome addresses by Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General; Prof. Volker Liebig, ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes; and Thomas Reiter, Director of Human Spaceflight and Operations. Experts then reported on the development of the satellites, Earth’s magnetic field and their expectations of the Swarm mission.

Launch from Plesetsk, Russia was at 12:02 GMT (13:02 CET). Contact was established with the trio just over an hour and a half later through the Kiruna station in Sweden and the Svalbard station in Norway.

Watch the liftoff