By Laurent Marot

KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) - An Ariane-5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana on Sunday, putting into orbit a British military satellite and an Indian telecommunications satellite, officials said.

The rocket, a new so-called heavy lift version of the previous Ariane-5, was launched on schedule from Europe's space base in Kourou, on the northeast coast of South America, at 7:03 p.m. (2203 GMT).

The launch was initially scheduled for Saturday but a technical problem on the launch-pad led to a 24-hour delay.

Billed by the Arianespace company as a cost effective launcher for large satellites, the rocket is capable of launching payloads of up to 10 metric tonnes.

This adds more than 3 tonnes of capacity compared to the previous generation Ariane-5 in service since the mid-1990s.

Arianespace is 28 percent owned by European aerospace giant EADS.

Twenty-seven minutes after the launch, the rocket released into a preliminary orbit a Skynet 5A satellite for Britain's Defence Ministry.

Built by EADS Astrium, the satellite manufacturing division of EADS, Skynet was designed to provide high-bandwidth communications for British and "friendly" forces across the globe, the ministry said.

"It's a groundbreaking military satellite system that will have five times the capacity of previous systems," said EADS Astrium official Patrick Wood.

Five minutes later, the rocket released Insat 4B -- the 13th Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) satellite launched by an Ariane -- to provide television and telecommunications services primarily to the Indian subcontinent.

"This is a very powerful satellite that will increase our capacity for direct-to-home television and improve coverage throughout rural Indian villages," said ISRO president G. Madhavan Nair.

Arianespace president Jean-Yves Le Gall said he expected his company to launch a total of six Ariane rockets this year.

The first launch of the Ariane-5 heavy-lift rocket in December 2002 ended in failure when it exploded in flight due to a problem in its main engine. Since then seven of the rockets have been successfully put into orbit.