Return of Soyuz 17 Mission

Date: February 9, 1975 • Location: Moscow, Russia

The spacecraft and crew of the Soviet Soyuz 17 mission returned to earth after 29 days in orbit at the Salyut 4 station.

Soyuz 17 was the first of two long-duration missions to the Soviet Union's Salyut 4 space station in 1975. The flight by cosmonauts Aleksei Gubarev and Georgy Grechko 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.