Lift-off for European telescopes

Europe's Herschel and Planck telescopes have blasted into space on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou in French Guiana.The satellites are being sent into orbit to gather fundamental new insights into the nature of the cosmos.The Ariane thundered clear of the launch pad at 1312 GMT (1412 BST) - its flight lasting just under half an hour.Mission controllers in Germany made contact with the telescopes over the Indian Ocean once they had separated from the rocket's upper-stage.The acquisition of the signals, relayed through ground stations in Australia, will have been a moment of huge relief for everyone connected with the two observatory projects.Their combined programme cost is 1.9bn euros (£1.7bn; $2.5bn), which made Herschel and Planck the highest value payload the European Space Agency's (Esa) science division has ever put on a single rocket."The launch today is just one step in a long chain of decisions and a fantastic amount of work by thousands of scientists and engineers," said agency director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain.