Soyuz 17 was the first of two long-duration missions to the Salyut-4 space station. The mission began on January 10, 1975, 21:43:37 UTC, launching commander Aleksei Gubarev and flight engineer Georgi Grechko into orbit. Spacecraft was manually docked with the station on January 12. During their stay on the station, crew performed an array of astrophysical experiments, including studying the Sun, planets and the stars in a wide electromagnetic spectrum. The mission concluded after 29 days with a safe landing back on Earth on February 9, 1975, 11:03:22 UTC.