January 11 is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... UTC also stands for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, also sometimes referred to as Zulu time, the basis for civil time, differs by an integral number of seconds from atomic time and a fractional number of seconds from UT1. ... The Baikonur Cosmodrome (Russian: Космодром Байконур, Kosmodrom Baykonur), also called Tyuratam, is the worlds oldest and largest working space launch facility. ... February 10 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Astana, estimated population 500,000 (2003, the city is very fast-growing), has been the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997. ...

Crew

• Georgi Grechko (1)
• Aleksei Gubarev (1)

Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko (Russian: Георгий Михайлович Гречко; born May 25, 1931 in Leningrad) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three space flights: Soyuz 17, Soyuz 26, and Soyuz T-14. ... Aleksei Aleksandrovich Gubarev (Russian: Алексей Александрович Губарев; born March 29, 1931 in Gvardeitsi) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on two space flights: Soyuz 17 and Soyuz 28. ...

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!" The Soyuz human spaceflight programme was initiated in the early 1960s as part of the manned lunar programme that was intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. ... Georgi Mikhailovich Grechko (Russian: Георгий Михайлович Гречко; born May 25, 1931 in Leningrad) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on three space flights: Soyuz 17, Soyuz 26, and Soyuz T-14. ... Aleksei Aleksandrovich Gubarev (Russian: Алексей Александрович Губарев; born March 29, 1931 in Gvardeitsi) was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on two space flights: Soyuz 17 and Soyuz 28. ... Salyut 4 (DOS 4) was a Salyut space station launched on December 26, 1974 into an orbit with an apogee of 355 km, a perigee of 343 km and an orbital inclination of 51. ... A space station is an artificial structure designed for humans to live on in outer space. ...

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.

Soyuz 16 was a test flight in the project to achieve a joint Soviet-US space flight that resulted in the Apollo-Soyuz mission. ... The Soyuz human spaceflight programme was initiated in the early 1960s as part of the manned lunar programme that was intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. ... Soyuz 18 was a Soyuz spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union but which failed to achieve orbit due to a serious malfunction during launch. ...