A European Ariane rocket launched a military surveillance satellite on Saturday, the third in a French-led drive for a European "spy in the sky'' independent of the United States. The Ariane-5 rocket blasted off at 1.26 pm (1626 GMT) from the European Space Agency (ESA) launch site in French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America. Aboard the rocket was the 4.2-tonne Helios 2A satellite, the first of a new generation of spy satellites. Earlier generation Helios 1 satellites were launched aboard Ariane rockets in 1995 and 1999. "This satellite is more precise (than Helios 1)," Lieutenant Colonel Inaky Garcia Brotons of the French Air Force told Reuters before the launch. "The infrared system permits detection of human activity. It can tell whether a truck convoy is moving or halted. Whether a nuclear reactor is operational or not," he said. The total programme cost including a second satellite to be launched in three years is 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion), the French Defence Ministry said.
