Asteroid-Plane Shortcut Could Pack Mars Trip Into 153 Days
A new paper in Acta Astronautica proposes a Bell-curve route to Mars that uses the orbital plane of asteroid 2001 CA21 to shave a typical five-to-11-month voyage to roughly 153 days, with 2031 Mars opposition identified as especially favorable. While the concept is promising, practical hurdles—propulsion, fuel, payload mass and life-support concerns—mean feasibility remains uncertain, but the study offers a provocative path toward sub-year crewed missions to the Red Planet.