How long is the flight to the Moon?

The flight time from Earth to the Moon depends on many factors, including fuel quantity, lunar orbit, and mission objectives.

Flying to the moon is no easy task. The natural satellite orbits Earth at an average distance of 238,000 miles (384,400 kilometers). Based on lunar missions over the past few decades, travel times range from 8 hours to 4.5 months. The fastest man-made spacecraft to fly by the moon was NASA's New Horizon probe, launched in 2006 to study Pluto. New Horizon flew by the moon about 8 hours and 35 minutes after launch, according to Live Science .

The spacecraft can fly to the Moon in 8 hours - 4.5 months depending on many factors. (Photo: Elen11).

But for missions headed to the Moon, the journey took a little longer. In 1959, on humanity's first lunar mission, the Soviet Union's Luna 1 spacecraft took 34 hours to reach its destination. The unmanned mission was meant to crash into the lunar surface, but the spacecraft veered off course, flying 5,995 kilometers (3,400 miles) away from the Moon. It eventually stopped transmitting when its batteries ran out, and it remains adrift in space to this day. In 1969, when astronauts landed on the Moon, it took the Apollo 11 crew 109 hours and 42 minutes from liftoff to Neil Armstrong's first step on the celestial body's surface.

The travel time to the Moon varies significantly depending on many factors, one of the most important being the amount of fuel used. Engineers have found that using less fuel on a flight to the Moon could result in a longer flight time , but still allow the mission to be accomplished by taking advantage of the natural gravity of celestial bodies like Earth, which helps guide the spacecraft along a longer path.

For example, in 2019, Israel landed an unmanned spacecraft called Beresheet on the Moon. After takeoff, Beresheet circled Earth for about six weeks in an increasingly widening orbit before gaining enough momentum to blast off toward the Moon. The spacecraft reached its destination, though not as the Israeli space agency had predicted. The crew lost contact and Beresheet crashed into the lunar surface 48 days after launch, spilling thousands of tardigrades in the process.

The spacecraft that holds the record for the longest flight to the Moon is NASA's CAPSTONE probe . The 25kg cubesat took 4.5 months to leave Earth, orbiting the planet several times before entering lunar orbit in 2022. CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) was sent to the Moon to test the orbit that NASA plans to use for the Gateway space station.

Regardless of the route taken, every mission to the Moon goes through several steps. 60 to 90 percent of the launch weight of any space mission is fuel to escape Earth's gravity and into space. Once the spacecraft reaches orbit, it needs to use as little fuel as possible to achieve the optimal trajectory to its destination, as the more fuel it carries, the heavier and more expensive it becomes. Finally, the spacecraft needs to burn fuel to exit Earth orbit.

The time it takes to get to the moon depends on many other factors. One of the biggest is the mission's purpose, according to Mark Blanton, who directs NASA's Moon-to-Mars mission analysis and evaluation. "The space agency will evaluate the types of rockets available and their ability to propel the spacecraft. The rocket's capabilities and the mission's objectives will determine the size of the spacecraft. Once all the requirements are determined, experts will design the optimal route."

Everything about the spacecraft and flight, calculating the exact size of the spacecraft, the size of the crew, the fuel allocation, and every other detail can impact the total time it takes to get to the Moon .