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How long does it accept to get to Mars?
If you wanted to travel to Mars, how long would it accept? The answer depends on several factors, ranging from the position of the planets to the technology that would propel you at that place.
According to NASA, a ane-way trip to Mars would have about nine months. If you wanted to make information technology a round-trip, all in all, it would accept about 21 months every bit you will need to wait well-nigh iii months on Mars to brand sure Earth and Mars are in a suitable location to make the trip back home.
We take a look at how long a trip to the Carmine Planet would take using available applied science and explore some of the factors that would touch your travel time.
How far away is Mars?
To decide how long information technology will take to reach Mars, we must first know the altitude between the ii planets.
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, and the second closest to Earth (Venus is the closest). But the altitude between Earth and Mars is constantly changing equally they travel around the lord's day.
In theory, the closest that Globe and Mars would approach each other would be when Mars is at its closest point to the sunday (perihelion) and Earth is at its farthest (aphelion). This would put the planets merely 33.9 million miles (54.half-dozen million kilometers) apart. All the same, this has never happened in recorded history. The closest recorded approach of the two planets occurred in 2003 when they were only 34.8 million miles (56 million km) autonomously.
The ii planets are uttermost autonomously when they are both at their farthest from the lord's day, on reverse sides of the star. At this point, they tin can be 250 one thousand thousand miles (401 one thousand thousand km) apart.
The boilerplate distance between Earth and Mars is 140 1000000 miles (225 million km).
Related: What is the temperature on Mars?
How long would it take to travel to Mars at the speed of light?
Light travels at approximately 186,282 miles per 2d (299,792 km per 2d). Therefore, a lite shining from the surface of Mars would take the following amount of time to reach World (or vice versa):
- Closest possible approach: 182 seconds, or three.03 minutes
- Closest recorded arroyo: 187 seconds, or three.xi minutes
- Uttermost approach: 1,342 seconds, or 22.4 minutes
- On average: 751 seconds, or just over 12.5 minutes
Fastest spacecraft and then far
The fastest spacecraft is NASA'southward Parker Solar Probe, as it keeps breaking its own speed records every bit information technology moves closer to the sun. On Nov 21, 2021 the Parker Solar Probe reached a tiptop speed of 101 miles (163 kilometers) per second during its tenth close flyby of our star, which translates to an eye-watering 364,621 mph (586,000 kph). According to a NASA statement, when the Parker Solar Probe comes within 4 one thousand thousand miles (6.2 1000000 kilometers) of the solar surface in December 2024, the spacecraft'south speed will top 430,000 miles per hour!
If the Parker Solar Probe managed to attain the speeds reached during its tenth close flyby of the Sun and took a detour from its lord's day-focused mission to travel in a straight line from World to the Red Planet, the fourth dimension information technology would take to get to Mars would exist:
- Closest possible arroyo: 93 hours
- Closest recorded approach: 95 hours
- Farthest approach: 686 hours (28.v days)
- On average: 384 hours (16 days)
The problems with computing travel times to Mars
Of course, the problem with the previous calculations is that they measure the distance betwixt the two planets as a straight line. Traveling through the farthest passing of Globe and Mars would involve a trip directly through the sun, while spacecraft must of necessity motility in orbit effectually the solar organisation's star.
Although this isn't a trouble for the closest approach, when the planets are on the same side of the sun, another problem exists. The numbers too assume that the two planets remain at a constant distance; that is, when a probe is launched from Earth while the two planets are at the closest approach, Mars would remain the aforementioned distance away over the 39 days it took the probe to travel.
Related: A brief history of Mars missions
In reality, however, the planets are continuously moving in their orbits around the dominicus. Engineers must summate the platonic orbits for sending a spacecraft from Earth to Mars. Their numbers factor in non just altitude just too fuel efficiency. Like throwing a sprint at a moving target, they must calculate where the planet will be when the spacecraft arrives, not where it is when it leaves Earth. Spaceships must also decelerate to enter orbit around a new planet to avoid overshooting it.
How long it takes to achieve Mars depends on where in their orbits the two planets prevarication when a mission is launched. It as well depends on the technological developments of propulsion systems.
Co-ordinate to NASA Goddard Space Flying Center'southward website, the ideal lineup for a launch to Mars would get you to the planet in roughly nine months. The website quotes physics professor Craig C. Patten, of the University of California, San Diego:
"Information technology takes the Earth one yr to orbit the sun and information technology takes Mars nigh 1.9 years (say 2 years for piece of cake calculation) to orbit the sunday. The elliptical orbit which carries yous from Earth to Mars is longer than Earth's orbit but shorter than Mars' orbit. Accordingly, we can judge the fourth dimension it would take to complete this orbit by averaging the lengths of Earth'due south orbit and Mars' orbit. Therefore, it would have about ane and a half years to consummate the elliptical orbit.
"In the nine months it takes to get to Mars, Mars moves a considerable distance around in its orbit, about iii-eighths of the way effectually the sun. You have to programme to make sure that by the time you reach the distance of Mar's orbit, Mars is where you need it to be! Practically, this means that you can merely begin your trip when Earth and Mars are properly lined up. This only happens every 26 months. That is, at that place is only one launch window every 26 months."
The trip could exist shortened past called-for more fuel — a process not platonic with today's technology, Patten said.
Evolving technology tin assistance to shorten the flying. NASA's Space Launch Organisation (SLS) will be the new workhorse for carrying upcoming missions, and potentially humans, to the red planet. SLS is currently beingness synthetic and tested, with NASA now targeting a launch in March or April 2022 for its Artemis 1 flight, the start flight of its SLS rocket.
Robotic spacecraft could one solar day make the trip in only three days. Photon propulsion would rely on a powerful laser to accelerate spacecraft to velocities approaching the speed of low-cal. Philip Lubin, a physics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his squad are working on the Directed Free energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration (DEEP-IN). The method could propel a 220-lb. (100 kilograms) robotic spacecraft to Mars in but three days, he said.
"There are recent advances which have this from scientific discipline fiction to scientific discipline reality," Lubin said at the 2015 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) fall symposium. "At that place's no known reason why nosotros cannot do this."
How long did past missions have to attain Mars?
Here is an infographic detailing how long it took several historical missions to reach the Carmine Planet (either orbiting or landing on the surface). Their launch dates are included for perspective.
Additional resources
Explore NASA's lunar exploration plans with their Moon to Mars overview. You can read about how to get people from Earth to Mars and safely back again with this informative commodity on The Conversation. Curious well-nigh the human being health risks of a mission to the Red Planet? You lot may find this research paper of particular interest.
Bibliography
- Lubin, Philip. "A roadmap to interstellar flight." arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.01356 (2016).
- Donahue, Ben B. "Futurity Missions for the NASA Space Launch System." AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2021 Forum. 2021.
- Srinivas, Susheela. "Hop, Skip and Jump—The Moon to Mars Mission." (2019).
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Source: https://www.space.com/24701-how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars.html
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