Mars spacejourney speed

How fast did the capsule travel on its journey to
mars, with Curiosity onboard?

Nasa says around 25000 mph.

Thats about 40k KM/h
666km/min
11km/s

How fast is mars moving AWAY from earth
AFTER launch...

I really don't know if this is right. At all really.

Distance from Earth to Mars on November 26, 2011: 204.4 Million KM
Distance from Earth to Mars on Aug 6, 2012: 247.8 Million KM

So does that mean Mars and Earth were separating at a rate of 7411.2 KMph?

Probly why it takes 7months
to get there...

2012, and all we have is OOOOLD technology...

They need to figure out MODULAR crafts..

Remember, the idea is to get your space craft to the object when the object is going to be there.

In other words: Curiosity was launched and sent to where Mars would be in August.

While it's true that the distance between Mars and Earth was further this past August then last November, remember that the Earth has moved too and is moving faster than Mars.

However, you should be looking at the distance from Mars to Curiosity once it left Earth's orbit.

Well, heres my idea:
Launch when the optimal AGAINST
Mars, that way BOTH objects move
TOWARDS each other...Or maybe
that is to obvious and what they
allready do..




NVM

Originally posted by Miccey
How fast did the capsule travel on its journey to
mars, with Curiosity onboard?

How fast does a thrown football travel on the way to a receiver 30 yards down field?

The answer is that the velocity is changing moment-by-moment. You could calculate an average based on distance travelled over time, but that would not accurately reflect what is actually going on.

The physics of an interplanetary trajectory are the same as the physics for a thrown football (minus the air resistance), and were formulated by Kepler & Newton over 300 years ago.

I'll see if I can run some numbers tonight. In the meantime, you can bone-up on the fundamentals:

Basics of Space Flight: Orbital Mechanics



Hope this helps.

reply to post by Miccey


Here you go, an image showing the flight path of the MSL:



It might seem like a good idea: launch a space craft and send it heading to Mars in the opposite direction, so that it can get there faster.

However, there are some problems doing that. Your space craft is going to get up to at least 17,000 Mph to just orbit the Earth in LEO. To leave Earth's orbit, it will need to be accelerated to 22,000 Mph. Remember also that the sun is going to be pulling on it, so we need it to have sufficient velocity to leave Earth's orbit around the sun and head outwards away from it.

Now here is the problem with meeting Mars in a more "head on" path: Delta V. Here we have MSL moving at about 22,000 Mph. Meanwhile Mars is moving at about 50,400 Mph (or 14 miles a second) around the sun.
Because the MSL is going as fast as it is, and Mars is approaching it at a speed that is twice that, it would be as if the MSL is moving at 77,000 Mph towards Mars. Much to fast to try and slow it down with air breaking due to how thin the martian atmosphere is. The MSL would have had to carry a lot more fuel to do some sort of braking manuever to slow it way down, and that much fuel added would have taken even more fuel to lift off from Earth and send it on it's way.

To put it another way, let's imagine you are in a car and have a bag of donuts you want to pass over to a person in another car. You're on a two lane high way.
You are headed in one direction going 60 Mph, and your friend in the other car is headed in the opposite direction at 120 Mph. Try to imagine passing off that bag to your friend at those speeds.

Now try it this way: Both of your cars and speeds are headed in the same direction, but when he passes you, the relative speed between you is only 5 Mph. Much easier to hand him that bag of donuts.

Here is a PDF file for working out the math on the MSL's flight path in case you are interested:

Curiosity's Flight Path To Mars

reply to post by eriktheawful

Mm.. I see the problem...

One question begets another.
Were the Curiosity donuts Krispy Kreme?

Well, heres my idea:
Launch when the optimal AGAINST
Mars, that way BOTH objects move
TOWARDS each other...Or maybe
that is to obvious and what they
allready do..

You are forgetting that Earth is moving at a significant velocity around the Sun when spacecraft are launched. If they were launched "backwards" (so to speak), they would lose a significant fraction of that "free" velocity, and end up falling towards the Sun (ie. away from Mars). In fact, that is exactly what happens when spacecraft are sent to the inner planets (Mercury and Venus).