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how long did it take to reach the moon? |
The time it takes to get to the moon depends on the speed of the spacecrafts. The Apollo 11 was launched July 16, 1969 from Kennedy Space Centre and landed on the moon on July 19th. It took a total of 3 days, 3 hours and 49 minutes to fly to the Moon and 3 days to return to Earth. Afterwards, on April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre and landed on the Pacific Ocean after traveling around the Moon on April 17th. It took total of 5 days, 22 hours and 54 minutes to fly to the Moon and return back to Earth. The shortest trip to the Moon took place in January 2006 by the NASA Pluto probe New Horizons. With the speed of 58,000 km/hr, it only took 8 hours and 35 minutes to get to the Moon from Earth. The longest trip took place in 2003 by the ESA SMART-1 lunar probe. It took 1 year and 6 weeks because it used ion engine which was very fuel efficient. However, these two missions did not return to Earth. |