Expert: Rangutan - 12/11/2007

Question
What is the longest mission too take place ever?1yr?2yrs?3yrs?

Answer
Hello Paul

[I found this in a pool of unanswered questions. It is a difficult question but I will try my best]

One must distinguish between a facility (Spacelab, ISS, Mir), a program (Gemini, Apollo), projects (Viking, Mars Explorer) and missions? A mission should be considered to be manned like the missions done by military pilots in aircraft from take-off to landing of the same vehicle or part thereof. One-way, unmanned and robotic space flights are now usually called projects.

The longest personal space flight using different missions for takeoff and landing was achieved by Valeriy Polyakov who spent 437 days aboard the Russian space station Mir in 1994 and 1995.

The longest Space Shuttle Mission was that of the Columbia in 1996 being 17 Days 15 Hours 53 Minutes 18 Seconds.

The longest Apollo mission was that of Apollo 17 being about 12 days and 14 hours.

The longest lasting facility in space was the Mir just 8 days short of 10 years. The ISS will break this record in 2010.

The space probe Voyager 1 launched in 1977 is still sending radio signals and is the furthest man made object being now around 103.6 AU, 14.36 light-hours, or 9.6 billion miles from the Sun!

The longest manned missions will be those to Mars in about the year 2030. Russia plans a mock 500-day Mars mission soon. See:
www.space.com/scienceastronomy/russia_500days_041011.html

There are quite a few old satellites still functioning like NOAA 12 (launched 1991). When does a space flight end when there is still debris and parts from some projects floating in space?
http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov

Any specific question will be gladly answered.

Regards
Rudi

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