Which is the longest distance traveled by a space craft?

Question

Which is the longest distance traveled by a space craft? Manned or unmanned? I believe it's Voyager, but I am not sure about the distance it traveled or is still traveling.

I believe the mission would be a one way mission obviously, but I may be wrong.

Distance travelled relative to what? We're all travelling tremendous distances relative to the Sun. — gerrit, Sep 29 '16 at 13:19

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:58

6

The spacecraft farthest away from Earth is Voyager 1. But that's not necessarily the longest distance traveled. If you accept the distance traveled while in orbit, a spacecraft can rack up a lot of miles while staying close to Earth.

Let's try this for Helios I:
launched in 1974, so 42 years ago. 367.920 hours, 1.324 *10⁹ seconds, at 45 km/s this is 59 *10⁹ km traveled, much further than Voyager's 19 *10⁹ km.

The Helios probes are in an eccentric probe. Assuming a speed of 70 km/s at perihelion and 30 km/s at aphelion (close to Earth's speed), a straight average is 45 km/s.
A better value can be calculated by finding its orbital period and the length of one orbit, I'm having some trouble figuring out how to find that length.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:58

Community

1

answered Sep 29 '16 at 12:32

Hobbes

127,529
4
396
565

1

Speed record actually now belongs to Juno, which at the time of Jupiter intercept achieved 73 km/s. – PearsonArtPhoto Sep 29 '16 at 13:04
Yes, but that's not useful for this calculation: with its highly elliptical orbit, Juno will be traveling slower than that most of the time. – Hobbes Sep 29 '16 at 13:25
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Helios was also quite eccentric, so... By that measure, your time is off, it will spend far more time at a slower speed. The speed you listed was the highest achieved, at the point closest to the sun, the furthest point will be much slower. – PearsonArtPhoto Sep 29 '16 at 13:48
changed the calculation a bit, using an average speed instead of maximum. – Hobbes Sep 29 '16 at 16:38
Interesting! I've just asked When are close approaches of Helios 1 and 2 to the Earth? Any historical tracking data? Any reports in sky surveys? – uhoh Dec 19 '20 at 04:57

Which is the longest distance traveled by a space craft?

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