The following is a breakdown of the time required to go from Apollo to Artemis on the Moon.
How much time does it take to travel all the way to the moon? If you want to spend some time on the lunar surface during your next weekend getaway, you will need to have an accurate estimate of the amount of time it will take you to get there.
Even though we are still quite a ways off from establishing bases on the Moon, NASA’s Artemis project is bringing humans back onto the surface of the Moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The construction of the Lunar Gateway, which will consist of a space station placed in lunar orbit and designed to serve as a staging area for future missions to the Moon, is the objective of the Artemis mission.
After more than half a century, humans will step foot on the moon for the first time thanks to the Artemis 3 mission. This expedition is not anticipated to take place before the year 2026 at the earliest; nevertheless, how much time will be required for the astronauts to get to the moon?
Learn how far distant the Moon is from Earth, how long it takes to get there, how long it took Apollo 11 to get there, and how long it takes a probe to get there by reading on.
How far is the Moon?
There is no predetermined distance that separates the Earth and the Moon from one another. The orbit of the Moon does not completely circle the Earth in the same way that the orbit of the Earth does not completely circle the Sun. Over the course of time, it moves both closer and further away.
At its closest approach to Earth, known as perigee, the Moon is 363,104 kilometers away, and at its farthest approach, known as apogee, it is 405,696 kilometers away. After taking these measurements, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is around 384,400 kilometers on average.
When planning trips to the surface of the Moon, scientists must take into account a variety of issues, one of which is the elliptical nature of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth.
How long to reach the Moon?
It is challenging to provide a definitive answer on how long it takes to get to the Moon; however, the journey should take slightly more than three days. There is a large number of information that needs to be taken into consideration, such as the fluctuating distance between Earth and the Moon, the take-off trajectory, whether the vehicle is manned or unmanned, the choice of propulsion system, and whether it is going to land on the Moon, orbit the Moon, or just fly by.
The Apollo 8 mission was the one that completed the insertion burn into lunar orbit the quickest, doing so in 69 hours and eight minutes. This made it the fastest mission in the Apollo program. This was the Apollo mission that took the least amount of time for NASA to complete; subsequent missions all had flight times that were at least 74 hours long. Apollo 17, the final mission to land on the Moon, required 86 hours and 14 minutes to go to the lunar surface.
In 2022, it took the unmanned spacecraft Artemis 1 five days to reach the orbit of the Moon around the moon. Since the ‘one little stride for man and a great leap for mankind’ event took place many years ago, getting to the moon has taken significantly longer. This is mostly due to the fact that we no longer employ a direct transfer trajectory in order to save money on fuel and other expenses.
It took how long to reach the Moon in 1969?
It took astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins 75 hours and 49 minutes to reach and land on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. That’s a little more than three days. This is the time it took them to land on the Moon, not merely enter orbit around it.
According to NASA, a whole Apollo mission, from takeoff to landing, took eight days, three hours, 18 minutes, and 35 seconds. Here is the complete list of Apollo missions to the Moon, along with their durations:
- Apollo 8: 69 hours, 8 minutes (1968)
- Apollo 10: 75 hours, 55 minutes (1969)
- Apollo 11: 75 hours, 49 minutes (1969)
- Apollo 12: 83 hours, 25 minutes (1969)
- Apollo 13: 76 hours (1970)
- Apollo 14: 81 hours, 56 minutes (1971)
- Apollo 15: 78 hours, 31 minutes (1971)
- Apollo 16: 74 hours, 28 minutes (1972)
- Apollo 17: 86 hours, 14 minutes (1972)
How long does it take for a probe to get to the Moon?
A probe may travel to the Moon in around eight hours and fifty minutes.
The journey to the moon aboard the New Horizons spacecraft took eight hours and 35 minutes to complete. After a total of nine years, in 2015, it was finally able to approach Pluto.
However, it is possible for other probes to take a significantly longer amount of time to reach the Moon. The amount of time it takes is determined by a number of factors, including the fuel that is used as well as others. For instance, the European Space Agency’s Smart-1 probe that was launched in 2003 took a total of one year and six weeks to go to the moon. The utilization of electric-ion propulsion, which consumes just 82 kg of xenon fuel, is the root cause of its sluggish speed.
