Moon is an astronomical body that orbits around the planet Earth, moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, the surface of the moon is dark and rough as compared to the night sky, the moon’s gravitational pull influences ocean tides and slight lengthening of the day.
Before we discuss how long does it take it get to the moon first it is important to understand the concept of distance between the earth and the moon the average distance between the earth and the moon is 238,857 miles the distance can vary from one phase to another as moon orbits naturally around the earth and this is the reason that sometimes it is farther or closer from earth which in turn greatly affects on How Long Does It Take To Get To The Moon.
Generally it takes about three days for a spacecraft to reach moon and during that period a spacecraft travels 240,000 miles which is the distance travelled from earth to moon considering the path taken.
Several manned and unmanned missionshave been launched to the moon, they are as follows:
MANNED MISSION
APOLLO 11
The first manned trip to the moon was in the spacecraft Apollo 11 launched via a Saturn V multi stage rocket, apollo11 Astronauts took 3days, 3 hours and 49 minutes to begin insertion into lunar orbitbut after the final journey of 4 days 6 hours 45 minutes and 40 seconds the astronauts finally made it to the surface of the moon and for the first time man stepped on the moon.
In the history of launching manned missions Apollo 16 was the fastest ever manned mission on the moon which took 3 days two hours 28 minutes to begin insertion in lunar orbit.
UNMANNED MISSION
ESA’S SMART 1was the slowest and the most fuel efficient mission, it used only 82kg of xenon propellant for the entire mission, it is also considered as the longest mission to the moon reaching in one year, one month and two weeks whereas the rest of missions reached within few days.
CHANG’E-1: China launched its mission from Xichang satellite Launch Center on October 24th 2007. The space craft from China sat in earth’s orbit till 31st October and began it journey and landed at lunar orbit on November 5th, it took 5 days to cover the distance from the earth to moon.
CHANG’E-2: China launched another mission to moon on 1st October 2010 and the orbiter reached lunar orbit in 4 days and 16 hours.
CHANG’E-3: Probe and Lander, it was launched on Dec 1st 2013 at 17:30 UTC and arrived in lunar orbit on December 6th at 9:15 UTC however it was the fastest unmanned mission to the moon.
NASA’S New Horizons Pluto mission was the fastest ever that went past by the moon with a speedy launch, advanced technological system, it just took 8 hours 35 minutes to reach the moon.
