Photos: Delta 4 awaits blastoff

Eight more satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation fleet will be built by Germany’s OHB System AG and Britain’s Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. under a contract worth more than $350 million.

An Ariane 5 rocket will fire into the sky from French Guiana just after sunset Wednesday and deliver nearly 12 tons of payload to an orbit reaching 22,000 miles up less than a half-hour later.

Darting through low clouds, the US Air Force’s reusable X-37B spaceplane rode a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket into orbit Sunday, debuting upgrades to accommodate additional scientific experiments, a dishwasher-sized tech demo satellite, and classified military objectives.