0

If we used the best current technologies that people are willing to use. How long would a mission to the Oort Cloud take? Let's assume that we want the probe to be able to send us back data once there.

Eric Coulthard
  • 143
  • 4
  • 1
    You asked this already. Please ask a question only once. – GdD Sep 23 '22 at 15:01
  • 2
    I asked in astronomy.stackexchange.com not knowing about space.stackexchange.com. Somebody suggested that I ask here, so I did. My original question got migrated. So now there are 2 questions. I'd delete one but they both have an answer. I don't want to throw out an answer. What should I do? – Eric Coulthard Sep 23 '22 at 15:21

1 Answers1

2

At least 300 years to reach the "start" of the oort cloud. Voyager 1, sent to space in 1977, is on track to reach the oort cloud in about 300 years at around 2019. Considering this, it should be around 350 years.

Despite Voyager 1 being released so early with not very advanced technology compared to today, it's basically one of the fastest probes there is. An example of which is:

Though New Horizons is three decades more advanced than Voyager 1, the nature of its mission means it will never reach the same speed as its predecessor. ScientificAmerican - How NASA flights to keep dying spacecraft alive

Now, the main problem is actually probably the flyby near planets. Voyager 1 took the Jupiter, Saturn and Titan flyby route, which apparently gave it the greatest hyperbolic excess speed of all the other probes sent. So technology isn't really everything.

However of course, if you really wanted to make the maximum speed, you'd have to make enormous computations to find the correct trajectory for the space probe to reach the best speed. Plus, all space probes are sent on missions before being flung into space. E.g. voyager 1 took pictures of jupiter etc.

You can read this question as well.

DialFrost
  • 1,673
  • 5
  • 21