NASA plans to send their astronauts to Mars in the future, and Elon Musk always asserts that he will be the first to achieve this feat. However, before we buckle up and launch into space, the important question to address is: How long does it actually take to complete a journey to Mars?
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Mars takes 687 Earth days to complete one orbit around the Sun. This means that the distance between Earth and Mars changes every day, and the two planets align with each other once every 26 months. Additionally, both Earth and Mars have elliptical orbits (Mars’ orbit being more pronounced), which means that during some alignments, the distance between the two planets will be closer than at other times. The most recent notable close approach between Earth and Mars occurred on October 6, 2020, when the red planet was only about 62.07 million kilometers away.
So, how long would it take to complete a 62 million-kilometer journey to Mars? Well, it depends on your speed. For instance, the Perseverance rover traveled at a speed of approximately 39,600 kilometers per hour and took 7 months to reach its destination. However, this was due to the specific positions of Earth and Mars at the time of Perseverance’s launch and landing.
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If you could travel to Mars as fast as the New Horizons spacecraft (famous for its flyby of Pluto in 2015), you could reach Mars in as little as 39 days, depending on the positions of the planets and the ability to sustain a speed of 58,000 kilometers per hour, which the New Horizons spacecraft achieved. In history, spacecraft have taken 128 days (Mariner 7 flew past Mars) and 333 days (Viking 2, the second U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars).
Since no humans have traveled to Mars yet, we don’t know precisely how fast the journey will be. It’s important to note that as you approach Mars, you will need to decelerate. For optimal results, the human journey to Mars will be calculated to take advantage of the alignment of the two planets and the smallest possible distance between them. Most estimates suggest that the travel time will range from 150 to 300 days, or approximately 5 to 10 months, with an average of around 7 months, similar to the journey of the Perseverance rover.