Photos: Soyuz blasts off from French Guiana

Launching from the Amazon jungle into the void of space Friday, a Russian Soyuz rocket inaugurated a new launch base and kicked off assembly of a $7.3 billion fleet of navigation satellites, fulfilling a decade of tough diplomatic negotiations and back-breaking construction in the granite bedrock of French Guiana.

Russia and Europe opened the new launch pad to allow the rocket to better compete for commercial and institutional missions. It's located at the Guiana Space Center on South America's northeast coast near Sinnamary, French Guiana.

Liftoff occurred at 1030 GMT (6:30 a.m. EDT) Friday. The rocket deployed two Galileo navigation satellites in orbit about four hours later.

Photo credit: Stephane Corvaja/ESA

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