A Russian Soyuz 2-1B rocket blasted off from French Guiana on Thursday, lifting a pair of European Galileo Navigation Satellites into a Medium Earth Orbit 23,500 Kilometers high in a mission lasting close to four hours.

The 11th and 12th Galileo satellites lifted off at 11:51 UTC and received a smooth nine-and-a-half-minute ride atop the Soyuz before the Fregat upper stage assumed control for two main engine burns, spaced by a coast phase of over three hours. Galileo FM-8 and 9, Andriana and Liene, were sent on their way 3 hours and 48 minutes after launch into what should be an on-target orbit.

Thursday’s launch marked the 16th Soyuz launch of the year with one more to go from the Baikonur Cosmodrome set for next week to loft a Progress resupply ship setting sail for the International Space Station. Overall, it was the 13th launch of Soyuz from its equatorial launch site.

Thursday’s launch was the year-closing mission for Arianespace, marking the completion of a successful year that saw 12 launches from the tropical space base. Of the 12 missions, six were flown by the heavy-lift Ariane 5 while Soyuz and Vega each flew three missions. All six Ariane 5 missions were typical bread-and-butter business, lofting pairs of communications satellites to Geostationary Transfer Orbit with the notable exception of the MSG-4 weather satellite that launched in July. The small Vega can look back at a very successful year, closing out its VERTA demonstration program and transitioning to an operational status.

Vega lofted ESA’s Intermediate Experimental Vehicle in February, conducing a demonstration of new re-entry technology for future applications. In June it lofted the Sentinel 2A Earth Observation Satellite followed by the launch of ESA’s LISA Pathfinder in early December on a mission to the L1 Sun-Earth Lagrange Point for a demonstration of cutting edge technology for the measurement of gravitational waves on a future science mission.

Soyuz launches from French Guiana were entirely dedicated to Galileo in 2015.