How Long Does Snkrs Draw Take
This article originally appeared in Universe Today in July, 2012, but it's been updated with a related video.
The planet Mars is i of the brightest objects in the night sky, easily visible with the unaided eye as a vivid cerise star. Every two years or so, Mars and Earth reach their closest point, called "opposition", when Mars can exist as close equally 55,000,000 km from Globe. And every two years, infinite agencies take advantage of this orbital alignment to send spacecraft to the Red Planet. How long does it take to get to Mars?
The total journey time from Earth to Mars takes between 150-300 days depending on the speed of the launch, the alignment of Earth and Mars, and the length of the journey the spacecraft takes to reach its target. It actually just depends on how much fuel y'all're willing to fire to go there. More fuel, shorter travel time.
History of Going to Mars:
The first spacecraft ever to make the journey from Earth to Mars was NASA's Mariner 4, which launched on November 28, 1964 and arrived at Mars July 14, 1965, successfully taking a series of 21 photographs. Mariner four'due south total flight time was 228 days.
The next successful mission to Mars was Mariner 6, which blasted off on February 25, 1969 and reached the planet on July 31, 1969; a flight time of only 156 days. The successful Mariner 7 simply required 131 days to make the journey.
Mariner ix, the first spacecraft to successfully become into orbit around Mars launched on May thirty, 1971, and arrived November 13, 1971 for a duration of 167 days. This is the same blueprint that has held up for more almost 50 years of Mars exploration: approximately 150-300 days.
Here are some more examples:
- Viking one (1976) – 335 days
- Viking 2 (1976) – 360 days
- Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (2006) – 210 days
- Phoenix Lander (2008) – 295 days
- Curiosity Lander (2012) – 253 days
Why Does it Take So Long?:
When you consider the fact that Mars is but 55 million km abroad, and the spacecraft are travelling in excess of twenty,000 km/hour, you would look the spacecraft to make the journeying in well-nigh 115 days, only it takes much longer. This is because both Earth and Mars are orbiting around the Sun. You tin't point directly at Mars and first firing your rockets, considering past the time you lot got there, Mars would accept already moved. Instead, spacecraft launched from Globe need to be pointed at where Mars is going to be.
The other constraint is fuel. Once more, if you had an unlimited amount of fuel, you'd point your spacecraft at Mars, fire your rockets to the halfway indicate of the journey, so turn around and decelerate for the last half of the journey. You could cutting your travel time down to a fraction of the electric current rate – but you would need an incommunicable amount of fuel.
How to Get to Mars with the Least Amount of Fuel:
The primary business organization of engineers is how to get a spacecraft to Mars, on the least amount of fuel. Robots don't really care about the hostile surroundings of space, and then it makes sense to subtract the launch costs of the rocket as much as possible.
NASA engineers use a method of travel chosen a Hohmann Transfer Orbit – or a Minimum Energy Transfer Orbit – to send a spacecraft from Earth to Mars with the least amount of fuel possible. The technique was beginning proposed by Walter Hohmann who published the first description of the maneuver in 1925.
Instead of pointing your rocket directly at Mars, you boost the orbit of your spacecraft and so that information technology's following a larger orbit around the Sunday than the Earth. Eventually that orbit volition intersect the orbit of Mars – at the exact moment that Mars is there besides.
If you demand to launch with less fuel, you but take longer to enhance your orbit, and increment the journey to Mars.
Other Ideas to Subtract the Travel Time to Mars:
Although it requires some patience to wait for a spacecraft to travel 250 days to reach Mars, we might want a completely dissimilar propulsion method if nosotros're sending humans. Infinite is a hostile place, and the radiation of interplanetary space might pose a longterm health gamble to homo astronauts. The background cosmic rays inflict a abiding avalanche of cancer-inducing radiation, only in that location's a bigger risk of massive solar storms, which could kill unprotected astronauts in a few hours. If you tin can decrease the travel time, you reduce the amount of fourth dimension astronauts are getting pelted with radiation, and minimize the amount of supplies they demand to behave for a return journey.
Go Nuclear:
1 idea is nuclear rockets, which heat up a working fluid – like hydrogen – to intense temperatures in a nuclear reactor, and then blast information technology out a rocket nozzle at high velocities to create thrust. Because nuclear fuels are far more energy dense than chemical rockets, you could go a higher thrust velocity with less fuel. It'south proposed that a nuclear rocket could decrease the travel fourth dimension down to about seven months
Go Magnetic:
Another proposal is a technology called the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (or VASIMR). This is an electromagnetic thruster which uses radio waves to ionize and heat a propellant. This creates an ionized gas called plasma which can be magnetically thrust out the back of the spacecraft at high velocities. Old astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz is pioneering the development of this technology, and a image is expected to exist installed on the International Space Station to assist it maintain its altitude above World. In a mission to Mars, a VASIMR rocket could reduce the travel fourth dimension down to 5 months.
Get Antimatter:
Possibly one of the nearly extreme proposals would be to use an antimatter rocket. Created in particle accelerators, antimatter is the most dense fuel you could possibly use. When atoms of matter meet atoms of antimatter, they transform into pure energy, as predicted by Albert Einstein's famous equation: E = mc2. Just 10 milligrams of antimatter would be needed to propel a human mission to Mars in only 45 days. Simply then, producing fifty-fifty that minuscule amount of antimatter would cost about $250 million.
Future Missions to Mars:
Even though some incredible technologies accept been proposed to shorten the travel fourth dimension to Mars, engineers volition be using the tried and true methods of post-obit minimum free energy transfer orbits using chemical rockets. NASA'south MAVEN mission volition launch in 2013 using this technique, likewise ESA's ExoMars missions. It might exist a few decades before other methods become common techniques.
Research further:
Information about Interplanetary Orbits – NASA
vii Minutes of Terror – The Challenge of Landing at Mars
NASA Proposal for a nuclear rocket engine
Hohmann Transfer Orbits – Iowa Country Academy
Minimum Transfers and Interplanetary Orbits
New and Improved Antimatter Space Ship for Mars Missions – NASA
Astronomy Cast Episode 84: Getting Around the Solar System
Related Stories from Universe Today:
Travel to Mars in Only 39 Days
A One Way, One Person Mission to Mars
Could a Man Mission to Mars exist Funded Commercially?
How Will MSL Navigate to Mars? Very Carefully
A Cheap Solution to Getting to Mars?
Why have then many missions to Mars failed?
This article originally appeared in Universe Today in July, 2012, but it's been updated with a related video.
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Source: https://www.universetoday.com/14841/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-to-mars/
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