This chart is a couple of years old. I knew there had been a couple of ships sent to Mars, but I didn't realize just how many there were, or how many had failed.
Spacecraft from both India and NASA arrived in orbit around Mars this week. This is India's first attempt at getting to Mars. You can see from the chart above that Russia didn't succeed in this endeavor until their 12th mission. That was 40 years ago, so you have to give them credit for making do with obsolete technology and persistence. Especially persistence.
Orbital speed is about 2.5 miles per second or about 10,000 MPH, which is roughly half what you need to orbit the Earth. Right now Mars is about 140 million miles away, which means radio signals will take 13 minutes to get there, which means you'll need to wait for almost half an hour to any inquiry you make. It took both spacecraft almost a year to get there.
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