Remember when SpaceX sent a red car into space? Well, this week marks five years since that happened. Come and remember with me how this event was, what were the reasons and where is the car that Elon Musk sent into space. Launch day was February 6, 2018. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket took Elon Musk’s personal car into space, a Tesla Roadster of 2010.
Where is the Tesla that Elon Musk sent into space?
The main objective of the test mission was to demonstrate that the new rocket was strong enough to carry a payload to Mars. But why choose a car? Well, SpaceX even presented NASA with an opportunity to offer a payload to take them into space, but NASA turned it down. Musk’s car was the second option.
The video above is the live feed taken by the cameras positioned around the vehicle. They managed to transmit for 4 hours and 13 minutes until the batteries ran out. After the transmission, the rocket still attached to the car performed a burn that accelerated the Tesla at Earth’s terminal velocity – orbiting the vehicle around the Sun.
Five years later, the car remains in that same orbit, coming “close” to Mars and Earth on some occasions. We can track the exact position of the Tesla Roadster using two websites:
Where is the Tesla Roadster now?
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- Light Blue: Mercury
- Yellow: Venus
- Blue: Earth
- Rosa: Tesla Roadster
- orange: mars
The Tesla Roadster is in a heliocentric orbit (around the sun) that crosses the orbit of Mars and comes within 1.66 au (astronomical units) of the Sun. With an inclination of approximately 1 degree relative to the ecliptic plane, the car will never encounter Mars in its path, since the planet is inclined 1.85 degrees.
Nine months following launch, Tesla had already traveled beyond the orbit of Mars, a distance of 248,892,559 kilometers from the Sun. The maximum speed the car reaches is approximately 121,000 km/h, at the closest point to the Sun.
Importantly, the mission’s goal was never to orbit or reach Mars. For this, it would be necessary to install a precise rocket module to carry out micro-corrections, advanced communication devices and even parachutes. The mission was intended to demonstrate the capability of the Falcon Heavy rocket to carry packages, and was considered a success.
What’s inside the car?
The Tesla Roadster is “piloted” by the “Starman”, a life-size mannequin dressed in a SpaceX pressurized spacesuit. He’s trapped in the car in a very casual position: with one arm gripping the steering wheel and the other on the window. The name “Starman” is a reference to David Bowie’s song, and the car radio was programmed to play the song “Space Oddity” by the same artist in looping.
In the glove compartment we have a copy of the book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, and a towel, as a reference to the book. A message written on the dashboard “DON’T PANIC!” It is also a reference to the work.
A plaque with the names of all the employees who worked on the project is glued to the underside of the car along with a message “Made on Earth, by Humans”.