Where is Elon Musk’s car going?

**Zippyjuan** · 02-10-2018, 05:33 PM

Thought there was a thread about Elon Musk testing his latest rocket and sending a Tesla car with a mannequin in a space suit riding it into space but can't find it. After releasing their payload, the rocket parts made a safe landing back on Earth (which was also pretty amazing).

It was meant to go into an orbit that would take it past Mars, but where’s it going really? Plus, see outer space from the vantage point of Starman, the mannequin in Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster, and much more.

Last Tuesday (February 6, 2018), SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy successfully lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Falcon Heavy is now the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two, providing a heavy-lift capability not seen since the Apollo era in the late 1960s and early ’70s, when mighty Saturn Vs rockets lifted astronauts to the moon. Falcon Heavy’s launch last Tuesday was a test flight, its maiden voyage, meant to prove the concept of the rocket itself (which is in essence three of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets joined together). It definitely did! But SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, as always, went further. He and his team placed Musk’s 2008 Tesla Roadster at the top of the rocket, with the goal of blasting it into an elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars. The orbit would, at times, bring the car – with its passenger, a mannequin nicknamed Starman, dressed for space – near Mars.

The Falcon Heavy rocket test was a major success and a thrill for space fans. After livestreaming views from StarMan’s vantage point in Earth orbit (see video above), SpaceX reignited the upper stage’s engine one last time, giving the Tesla a push beyond Earth’s orbit.

So … was the car bound for Mars?

As Musk said in the tweet above, the burn did indeed push the car and its passenger farther than expected. But was it really now headed for the asteroid belt? In a great article in The Atlantic on February 8, Marina Koren brings together information from astronomers, who were also talking on Twitter on launch day, following Musk and checking his facts.

CfA astronomer Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589 on Twitter), also an inveterate tweeter (like Musk), was one of those trying to calculate the Roadster’s correct orbit. He tweeted on Wednesday:

Elon is still talking about the Starman going to the asteroid belt. But I’m not convinced yet …

As reported by Koren, the astronomers also used independent observations made by Rob McNaught, an Australian asteroid observer, which were posted online. Koren wrote:

Late Wednesday night, their suspicions were confirmed. Revised orbital data provided by SpaceX and shared with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s system for tracking solar-system bodies showed the original graphic was incorrect.

So, based on the corrected numbers, the car actually won’t make it as far as the asteroid belt, as Musk claimed in his tweet.

According to the revised data … it will take the Tesla about 18.8 months to complete one trip around the sun. This means that the car will reach its farthest distance from Earth in about half that time. The Tesla will cross the orbit of Mars twice per orbit, so Musk is still fulfilling his wish to send his Tesla ‘to’ Mars — it’ll just take a little longer between visits.

Granted, crossing Mars’ orbit is not the same thing as going “to” Mars, but it’s still pretty cool. What’s more, the Tesla won’t take that long to cross Mars’ orbit. Click into Jonathan McDowell’s tweet, below, and read some of the comments, for a good discussion.

More at link.

The animated film "Heavy Metal" had the idea of a car in space back in 1981.

**Danke** · 02-10-2018, 11:08 PM

]A third booster, or the centre core of the rocket, was supposed to land on a floating barge in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but that did not go as planned.

If we got the footage ... that sounds like some pretty fun footage, if the cameras didn't get blown up as well, then we'll put that up ... for - you know - just the blooper reel.

Speaking at a news conference after the launch, Musk said the centre core of the rocket was lost after it smashed into the ocean near the landing pad.
"The centre core hit water at 300 miles per hour (482km/h) and took out two of the engines of the drone ship," Musk said.
"If we got the footage ... that sounds like some pretty fun footage if the cameras didn't get blown up as well, then we'll put that up ... for - you know - just the blooper reel," he said.
"The rocket landed about 100 metres away from the landing pad, which was enough to take out two thrusters and shower the deck with shrapnel," Musk added