Washington/Taipei (dpa) - A six-satellite mission, a joint US- Taiwan project, was launched successfully from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the government in Taiwan confirmed on Saturday.

The rocket, which was launched Friday evening California time, carried six small weather satellites at once, on a five-year mission to track hurricanes, monitor climate change and study space weather, Space.com reported.

The government of Taiwan and several US agencies, including the National Science Foundation funded the 100-million-dollar venture. A Minotaur rocket carried the crafts aloft after 6:30 pm local time, into orbit about 400 kilometres above Earth.

The launch was aborted before the original liftoff time, but the problem was resolved before the second try.

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian Saturday congratulated the joint team on the launch of the satellites, designed to improve global weather forecasting.

The entire project, known as FORMOSAT-3, "is an important cooperation between Taiwan and the US," Chen said. "Through it, we hope to exchange meteorological data with foreign countries and raise Taiwan's international status in the field of meteorology."

He made his remarks in a videotaped message to the Taiwan-US team in California.

FORMOSAT-3, Taiwan's third satellite, is also called Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC).

The low-orbiting satellites are intended to help improve forecasting space weather and in foreseeing geomagnetic storms that can disrupt satellite and communications systems on Earth.