SpaceX: Breathtaking images show Falcon 9 rocket blasting twin satellites into orbit on new NASA mission

Incredible images show the moment SpaceX blasted two new satellites into orbit in a £320 million NASA mission to monitor changes to the Earth’s climate.

The Grace FO mission launched from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base on 7.50pm GMT (3.47pm local time) on Tuesday.

Amazing footage and pictures show one of Elon Musk’s fleet of reusable Falcon 9 rockets blast the satellites into a low orbit.

The device can be seen shooting into a clear blue sky from its launch pad in a fiery cloud of white smoke.

The launch came as part of a joint mission by NASA and the German Centre of Geosciences.

The twin Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow On satellites that are set to track changes to the world’s water flow were blasted into orbit 11 minutes after lift-off, SpaceX revealed.

NASA confirmed it had made contact with the satellites shortly after the release from the McMurdo tracking station in Antarctica.

The US space agency ploughed $430 million into the mission with a further $91 million funded by the German researchers, according to Spacenews.com

“GRACE was really a revolutionary mission for us understanding the water cycle and how the climate behaves,” said Frank Webb, GRACE-FO project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during a pre-launch briefing.

The Falcon 9 shot higher into space to release five of a fleet 75 Iridium satellites into orbit.

The satellites owned by Iridium Communications being the constellation of communication devices to 55.