Soyuz 17

Soyuz 17 (Russian: Союз 17, Union 17) was the first of two long-duration missions to the Soviet Union's Salyut 4 space station in 1975. The flight set a Soviet mission-duration record of 29 days, surpassing the 23-day record set by the ill-fated Soyuz 11 crew aboard Salyut 1 in 1971.

Crew

Backup crew

Reserve crew

Mission parameters

• Mass: 6,800 kg (15,000 lb)
• Perigee: 185 km (115 mi)
• Apogee: 249 km (155 mi)
• Inclination: 51.6°
• Period: 88.8 min

Mission highlights

Salyut 4 was launched 26 December 1974, and Soyuz 17, with cosmonauts Georgi Grechko and Aleksei Gubarev as its first crew, was launched 16 days later on 10 January 1975.^[2] Gubarev manually docked Soyuz 17 to the station on 12 January, and upon entering the new station he and Grechko found a note from its builders which said, "Wipe your feet!"^[2]

Salyut 4 was in an unusually high circular orbit of 350 km (220 mi) when Soyuz 17 docked with the station. Salyut designer Konstantin Feoktistov said this was to ensure propellant consumption would be half of what was needed for lower-altitude Salyuts.^[3]

The crew worked between 15 and 20 hours a day, including their 2 ¹⁄₂ hour exercise period.^[2] One of their activities included testing communication equipment for tracking ships and contacting mission control via a Molniya satellite.^[2]

Astrophysics was a major component of the mission, with the station's solar telescope activated on 16 January.^[3] The crew later discovered that the main mirror of the telescope had been ruined by direct exposure to sunlight when the pointing system failed. They resurfaced the mirror on 3 February and worked out a way of pointing the telescope using a stethoscope, stopwatch, and the noises the moving mirror made in its casing.^[2]

On 14 January, a ventilation hose was set up from Salyut 4 to keep the Soyuz ventilated while its systems were shut down.^[2] On 19 January it was announced that ion sensors were being used to orient the station, a system described as being more efficient.^[3]

A new teleprinter was used for communications from the ground crew, freeing the Salyut crew from constant interruptions during their work.^[3]

The cosmonauts began powering down the station on 7 February and they returned to Earth in the Soyuz capsule two days later.^[3] They safely landed near Tselinograd in a snowstorm with winds of 72 km/h and wore gravity suits to ease the effects of re-adaptation.^[2]

References

Soyuz human spaceflight programme
Main topics	Soyuz (rocket family) Soyuz (spacecraft) Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 1/5 Site 31/6 List of Soyuz missions List of Soviet manned space missions List of Russian manned space missions
Current missions	Soyuz MS-02 MS-03
Future missions	2017 Soyuz MS-04 MS-05 MS-06 MS-07 2018 Soyuz MS-08 MS-09 MS-10
Past missions (by spacecraft type)	Soyuz 7K-OK (1966–1970) Kosmos 133† Soyuz 7K-OK No.1† Kosmos 140 Soyuz 1† Kosmos 186 188 212 213 238 Soyuz 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Soyuz 7K-L1 (1967–1970) (Zond lunar programme) Kosmos 146 154† Zond 1967A† 1967B† Zond 4 1968A† 1968B† 5 6 1969A† Zond-M 1† M 2† Zond 7 8 9 10 Soyuz 7K-L1E (1969–1970) Soyuz 7K-L1E No.1† Kosmos 382 Soyuz 7K-LOK (1971–1972) Soyuz 7K-LOK No.1† No.2† Soyuz 7K-OKS (1971) Soyuz 10† 11† Soyuz 7K-T (1972–1981) Kosmos 496 573 Soyuz 12 Kosmos 613 Soyuz 13 Kosmos 656 Soyuz 14 15† 17 18a† 18 20 (uncrewed) 21 23† 24 25† 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 (uncrewed landing) 33† 34 (uncrewed launch) 35 36 37 38 39 40 Soyuz 7K-TM (1974–1976) Kosmos 638 672 Soyuz 16 19 (Apollo–Soyuz Test Project) 22 Soyuz 7K-S (1974–1976) Kosmos 670 772† 869† Soyuz-T (1978–1986) Kosmos 1001† 1074 Soyuz T-1 (uncrewed) T-2 T-3 T-4 T-5 T-6 T-7 T-8† T-9 T-10a† T-10 T-11 T-12 T-13 T-14 T-15 Soyuz-TM (1986–2002) Soyuz TM-1 (uncrewed) TM-2 TM-3 TM-4 TM-5 TM-6 TM-7 TM-8 TM-9 TM-10 TM-11 TM-12 TM-13 TM-14 TM-15 TM-16 TM-17 TM-18 TM-19 TM-20 TM-21 TM-22 TM-23 TM-24 TM-25 TM-26 TM-27 TM-28 TM-29 TM-30 TM-31 TM-32 TM-33 TM-34 Soyuz-TMA (2002–2012) Soyuz TMA-1 TMA-2 TMA-3 TMA-4 TMA-5 TMA-6 TMA-7 TMA-8 TMA-9 TMA-10 TMA-11 TMA-12 TMA-13 TMA-14 TMA-15 TMA-16 TMA-17 TMA-18 TMA-19 TMA-20 TMA-21 TMA-22 Soyuz-TMA-M (2010–2016) Soyuz TMA-01M TMA-02M TMA-03M TMA-04M TMA-05M TMA-06M TMA-07M TMA-08M TMA-09M TMA-10M TMA-11M TMA-12M TMA-13M TMA-14M TMA-15M TMA-16M TMA-17M TMA-18M TMA-19M TMA-20M Soyuz MS (2016–present) Soyuz MS-01
Uncrewed missions are designated with Kosmos numbers; crewed missions get a Soyuz number. Failed missions are denoted with a † symbol. Cancelled missions are in italics.