Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

The final flight of Russia’s Rockot launcher took off Thursday and placed four satellites into orbit nearly 1,000 miles above Earth, ending a run of 31 launches since May 2000.

A Russian Proton rocket lifted off at 1017 GMT (6:17 a.m. EDT) Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodorme in Kazakhstan. After a marathon 16-hour-long launch sequence, the Proton and its Breeze M upper stage will deploy the Eutelsat 5 West B video broadcast satellite and a robotic satellite servicing payload aiming to attempt the first-ever docking in geosynchronous orbit.

Russia may start sending just two of its cosmonauts to the International Space Station at a time, according to media reports and comments by a NASA manager, in a cost-cutting measure that could reduce the size of the research lab’s crew to five.