Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

The Global Positioning System, its precision navigation and timing services made possible by the U.S. Air Force and provided free-of-charge to the planet’s civilian population, is a marvel of the modern world, and the orbiting network will receive a fresh satellite Wednesday.

After four weeks of navigating in the vicinity of asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft fired its thrusters for eight seconds Monday to slip into orbit around the carbon-rich object, making Bennu the smallest planetary body ever orbited by a spacecraft.

There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.