• Question: how long does it take to land on the moon

    Asked by Chantelle to Colin, John, Kevin, Shikha, Triona on 18 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Kevin Motherway

      Kevin Motherway answered on 18 Nov 2014:

      For Apollo 11, from separation from the command module Columbia it took just under 2 hours for the lunar module Eagle to manoeuvre, do its retro burn and set down after a controlled descent. It took about 3 days to get to the moon from the launch of the mission.

    • Photo: Colin Johnston

      Colin Johnston answered on 19 Nov 2014:

      NASA’s Apollo missions in the ’60s and ’70 took more than three days from lift off to lunar orbit. After a while (upon to three days) on the Moon, it took the same time to come back. In the process, the crews became the fastest moving human beings ever reaching 11.1 km/sec on the return journey (record set by the crew of Apollo 10).

    • Photo: Shikha Sharma

      Shikha Sharma answered on 20 Nov 2014:

      Hi Chantelle,

      Travelling time is dependent on the speed of the space crafts. In 1969, the Apollo 11 was launched from Kennedy Space Centre and landed on the moon in 3 days, 3 hours and 49 minutes. 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 🙂

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