Travel between Earth and the International Space Station is common since its launch, in the early 2000s. Today it is much more common, between the arrival and return of astronauts and cosmonauts, as well as payload.
However, How long does it take to travel between Earth and the International Space Station?
The first thing we should know is that the orbiting laboratory is located about 400-420 kilometers above sea level.
The duration of the flight from our planet does not depend so much on the distance, but of the ship’s path to reach the proper position and orbit and dock to the ISS.
As you well remember the Digital Trends portal, the first ever mission to the station was carried out by the Russian Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft, and it took just over two days to travel and dock, specifically 49 hours and 29 minutes.
With the passage of time, the number decreased. to 6 hours on average. However, the record is held by the Russian probe Soyuz MS-17, which on October 14, 2020 traveled from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station in 3 hours and 3 minutes.
It was the first manned mission to use the technique called Super fast meeting. With it, the alignment of the ISS orbit with the profile of the launch from Baikonur is used.
On the flight were Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, plus NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins.
And from the International Space Station to Earth, how long does a trip take?
The flight from the International Space Station to our planet it gets faster. can take up 2.5 hours, as the Russian Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft did.
On average, the flight can be of 3.5 hours.
The reason the return trip is faster is because the ISS is already moving at high speed.
The laboratory orbits the Earth at a speed of approximately 28,000 kilometers per hour. When a spacecraft is launched from Earth, it needs to accelerate to this speed to match the orbit of the ISS.
However, when a spacecraft is already in orbit, it only needs to slow down to return to Earth. This is much easier and faster to do.
In addition, the spaceship also it can take advantage of Earth’s gravity to return faster. The gravity of our planet pulls the spacecraft towards it, giving the ship additional speed.