The ISS is around 400km above us. A rocket needs a speed of at least 8km per second to get to space. If we cut out the acceleration part it could in theory reach the ISS in around 50 seconds. Even if we factor in the acceleration part etc. it should still be very quick up there. Yet the fastest possible time to get to the ISS is 4 hours. That would be an average speed of 100Km/h which is way slower than the speed of the rocket after a few seconds. Why the long journey?
In: Planetary Science
I believe that at least some launches will also deliberately ‘miss’ the ISS. That way if there is a failure later on in the launch (after getting into orbit), the vehicle/payload will not be aimed directly at the ISS.
You technically could launch pretty much directly to the ISS and ger there quickly… but there’s no reason to hurry, so you do it step by step, launch close, check everything good, get closer, check everything is good, repeat.
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