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Photo: Bill Ingalls/AP, License: N/A

In this image released by NASA, a Delta 2 rocket with the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite launches at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday morning, July 2, 2014. The goal of the $468 million mission, designed to last at least two years, is to study the processes behind how the environment absorbs carbon dioxide. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls) MANDATORY CREDIT


The $468 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission had to be put off when Tuesday’s launch attempt was halted with 46 seconds left in the countdown. Technicians spent the day replacing a defective valve in the system that sprays water beneath the rocket during liftoff.

The Delta 2 rocket carrying the satellite lifted off at 5:56 a.m. Wednesday and rose to 429 miles above Earth. The success comes five years after the loss of the mission’s original satellite: Its clamshell nose cone failed to separate, and the spacecraft splashed into the ocean.

Over the next 10 days, flight controllers will check out the spacecraft, and will then nudge it over three weeks into its final destination, 438 miles up in an orbit passing over the poles, where it will take its position at the front of a parade of other Earth-observing spacecraft.