Photos: More shots of Delta 4 liftoff

Europe’s nearly $8 billion Galileo navigation system, an analog to the U.S. GPS satellite network, is hitting a stride in production and launches, with another two spacecraft encapsulated Wednesday inside the fairing of a Soyuz rocket for liftoff next week.

Launching into a sun-splashed summertime afternoon sky, a previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from Florida’s east coast Friday with a U.S.-built, Bulgarian-owned television broadcasting satellite.

A new Russian navigation satellite lifted off Saturday on top of a Soyuz rocket, riding the three-stage booster and a Fregat upper stage into orbit to supplement the country’s Glonass network providing precise global positioning and timing services.