Rocket on mission to seek life on Mars

Two robotic spacecraft began a seven-month journey to Mars on Monday as part of a European-Russian unmanned space mission to sniff out leads to life on the Red Planet.

Russia's Proton rocket, carrying the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli landing demonstrator, launched into an overcast sky at the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the European Space Agency said.

Roscosmos said the launch had taken place "successfully".