Just seven seconds before lift-off of the Russian Rokot booster with a European satellite aboard, the cyclic graph was interrupted and the launch postponed for one day.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has entrusted its GOCE satellite mission to the converted Russian SS-19 ballistic missile carrier Rokot, which was due to blast off from the Russian Plesetsk military cosmodrome today at 17:21 (14:21 GMT). However, just seconds before the launch, it was postponed until tomorrow.

“The launch of the Rokot carrier with the European satellite on board has been shifted one day to a reserve date due to problems of a technical nature,” lieutenant colonel Aleksey Zolotukhin, spokesman for the Russian space-borne military forces, told journalists.

The delay had been caused by the failure of Rokot’s operational tower on the launch pad.

GOCE (the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) is the first European satellite to measure the gravitational field and study the world ocean currents as part of the ESA's Living Planet program.

The GOCE programme will help in understanding how the Earth's gravity field influences oceanic currents, changes the water level and effects climate. It will also study the Earth's underground activities in areas of high volcanic and seismic events.

The satellite weighs approximately 1,200 kilograms.

The GOCE launch had initially been planned for autumn 2008 and was postponed several times due to problems in the working of the upper stage control system.