Soyuz 17
| Mission Statistics
|
| Mission Name:
| Soyuz 17
|
| Call Sign:
| Зенит (Zenit - "Zenith")
|
| Number of Crew Members:
| 2
|
| Launch:
| January 11, 1975
21:43:37 UTC
Baikonur
|
| Landing:
| February 10, 1975
11:03:22 UTC
110km NE of Tselinograd
|
| Duration:
| 29 days, 13 h, 19 min, 45 s
|
| Number of Orbits:
| 479
|
Crew
Mission Parameters
- Mass: 6800 kg
- Perigee: 185 km
- Apogee: 249 km
- Inclination: 51.6°
- Period: 88.8 min
Mission highlights
Soyuz 17 carried cosmonauts Georgi Grechko and Aleksei Gubarev to the Salyut 4 space station for a month-long stay. Upon entering the new station, they found a humorous note from its builders, telling them to "Wipe your feet!"
When Soyuz 17 docked, Salyut 4 was in an unusually high circular orbit at 350
km. Astrophysics was a major component of their mission (hence the high
altitude). The crew discovered that the main mirror of the solar telescope had
been ruined by direct exposure to sunlight when the pointing system failed.
They resurfaced the mirror and worked out a way of pointing the telescope
using a stethoscope, stopwatch, and the noises the moving mirror made in its
casing.
Experiments carried out on board the station were mostly of an astronomical nature, with observations of the Sun, the Earth, and the planets.