Tango and Rumba start their journey

About three hours after launch, when the pair of Cluster spacecraft had successfully separated from its Fregat booster, the mini-camera transmitted back to Earth a series of 27 colour images taken 3 seconds apart.

The two Cluster spacecraft, called Tango and Rumba, were imaged spinning against the background of the blue and white Earth and the black void of deep space.

The images were transmitted to the ground after communication with the spacecraft was established from the Kiruna ground station in Sweden.

Tango and Rumba will now rendezvous with Salsa and Samba, the two Cluster spacecraft launched last month.

They will fly in formation through the Earth's magnetosphere making measurements of the streams of charged particles and rippling magnetic fields that can cause problems for orbiting satellites and power grids on the ground.