Posted: Sat, Sep 12, 2015, 10:15 AM ET (1415 GMT)
A Soyuz rocket successfully placed two Galileo satellites into orbit late Thursday. The Soyuz-2 rocket lifted off from French Guiana at 10:08 pm EDT Thursday (11:08 pm local time Thursday, 0208 GMT Friday). Its Fregat upper stage released the two Galileo satellites into their planned medium Earth orbits three hours and 48 minutes later. The two satellites bring the total number of operational Galileo spacecraft to ten, one third of the planned full constellation of navigation satellites. Initial Galileo services will be available in 2016.

Related Links:

•  BBC article
•  Spaceflight Now article
•  NASASpaceFlight.com article
•  Reuters article
•  Arianespace press release