Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster
Names | SpaceX Roadster[1] Starman[1] |
---|---|
Mission type | Test flight |
Operator | SpaceX |
COSPAR ID | 2018-017A |
SATCAT no. | 43205 |
Mission duration | Active: 1 Day In Orbit: 6 years, 2 months and 17 days |
Spacecraft properties | |
Spacecraft type | upper stage of a Falcon Heavy rocket |
Manufacturer | Tesla and SpaceX |
Launch mass |
|
Start of mission | |
Launch date | 20:45:00, February 6, 2018 (UTC) |
Rocket | Falcon Heavy FH-001 |
Launch site | Kennedy LC-39A |
Contractor | SpaceX |
End of mission | |
Deactivated | February 7, 2018 |
Orbital parameters | |
Reference system | Heliocentric |
Eccentricity | 0.25571[4] |
Perihelion altitude | 0.98613 au (147,523,000 km)[4] |
Aphelion altitude | 1.6637 au (248,890,000 km)[4] |
Inclination | 1.077°[4] |
Period | 1.525 year[4] |
Epoch | 1 May 2018 |
| ||
---|---|---|
Companies
In popular culture
Related
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Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is an electric sports car that served as the
The car, mounted on the rocket's second stage, was launched on an
Advertising analysts noted Musk's sense of
Background
In March 2017, SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, said that because the launch of the new Falcon Heavy vehicle was risky, it would carry the "silliest thing we can imagine".[9]
In June 2017, one of his Twitter followers suggested that the silly thing be a Tesla Model S, to which Musk replied: "Suggestions welcome!"[10][11][12][13]
In December 2017, Musk announced that the payload would be his personal "midnight cherry Tesla Roadster".[14][15][16][17]
One of the test flight objectives was to demonstrate that the new rocket could carry a payload as far as the orbit of Mars. NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver stated that SpaceX had "offered free launches to NASA, Air Force etc. but got no takers", and that "the Tesla gimmick was the backup".[18]
The Roadster is the first standard roadworthy vehicle sent into space,
Roadster as payload
The car was permanently mounted on the rocket in an inclined position above the payload adapter. Tubular structures were added to mount front and side cameras. Photos of the car prior to payload encapsulation were released.[20]
Positioned in the driver's seat is "Starman", a full-scale human mannequin clad in
A copy of Douglas Adams' novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is in the glove box, along with references to the book in the form of a towel and a sign on the dashboard that reads "DON'T PANIC!".[24] A Hot Wheels miniature Roadster with a miniature Starman is mounted on the dashboard. A plaque bearing the names of the employees who worked on the project is placed underneath the car, and a message on the vehicle's circuit board reads "Made on Earth by humans".[25] The car also carries a copy of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy on a 5D optical disc, a proof of concept for high-density long-lasting data storage, donated to Musk by the Arch Mission Foundation.[26][27]
Trajectory
The US
The launch was live streamed, and video feeds from space showed the Roadster at various angles, with Earth in the background, thanks to cameras placed inside and outside the car, on booms attached to the vehicle's custom adaptor atop the upper stage.[33][34] Musk had estimated the car's battery would last over 12 hours, but the live stream ran for just over four hours, thus ending before the final boost out of Earth orbit.[7][35][36] The images were released by SpaceX into the public domain on their Flickr account.[37][38]
Following the launch, the rocket stage carrying the car was given the
The Roadster is in a heliocentric orbit that crosses the orbit of Mars and reaches a distance of 1.66 au from the Sun.
Even if the rocket had targeted an actual
Cultural impact
The car in space quickly became a topic for
Some news reports observed a similarity between the real pictures of a car orbiting the Earth and the title sequence of the animated
The SpaceX launch live stream reached over 2.3 million concurrent viewers on YouTube, which made it the second most watched live event on the platform, behind another space-related event: Felix Baumgartner's jump from the stratosphere in 2012.[54]
Reactions
The choice of the Roadster as a dummy payload was variously interpreted as marketing for Tesla, or a work of art, with some worrying about the risk to contamination of otherwise sterile solar system bodies. Some also commented on how the Roadster was not a space debris risk.
Marketing
Musk was lauded as a visionary
Lori Garver, a former NASA deputy director, initially said the choice of payload for the Falcon Heavy maiden flight is a gimmick and a loss of opportunity to further advance science—but later clarified that "I was told by a SpaceX VP (vice president) at the launch that they offered free launches to NASA, Air Force etc. but got no takers."[60]
Musk responded to the critics stating he wanted to inspire the public about the "possibility of something new happening in space," as part of his larger vision for
Work of art
The Verge likened the Roadster to a "ready-made" work of art, such as Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece Fountain, created by placing an everyday object in an unusual position, context and orientation.[61]
Alice Gorman, a lecturer in archaeology and space studies at Flinders University in Australia, said that the Roadster's primary purpose is symbolic communication, that "the red sports car symbolises masculinity – power, wealth and speed[62] – but also how fragile masculinity is." Drawing on anthropological theories of symbols, she argues that "The car is also an armour against dying, a talisman that quells a profound fear of mortality."[63] Gorman wrote that "the spacesuit is also about death. [...] The Starman was never alive, but now he's haunting space."[63]
Space debris non-risk
Orbital debris expert Darren McKnight stated that the car poses no risk because it is far from Earth orbit. He added: "The enthusiasm and interest that [Musk] generates more than offsets the infinitesimally small 'littering' of the cosmos."
Bacteriological contamination
The Planetary Society was concerned that launching a non-sterile object to interplanetary space may risk biological contamination of a foreign world.[66] Scientists at Purdue University noted that the vehicle will be sterilized by solar radiation over time and the vehicle is most likely to hit the Earth in the future, though some bacteria might survive on some components of the vehicle which could contaminate Mars in the distant future if it were to hit Mars instead.[67]
Orbit tracking
The car and the upper stage were passivated by intentionally removing remaining chemical and electrical energy, at which point they ceased transmitting telemetry. Based on optical observations made using a robotic telescope at the Warrumbungle Observatory, Dubbo, Australia and refinement of the orbit, a close re-encounter with Earth (originally predicted for 2073) is not possible.[68] In October 2020 the car made a close approach to Mars, about 8 million kilometres (5 million miles) away, at which distance Mars's gravity had no significant effect on the Roadster's orbit.[69]
The
Through measuring changes in apparent brightness of the object, astronomers have determined that the Roadster is rotating with a period of 4.7589 ± 0.0060 minutes (i.e. 4 minutes, 46 seconds).
Future predictions
The roadster made its first close approach to Mars on October 7, 2020. The next close approach to Earth will be in the year 2047 at a distance of 5 million kilometers, about 13 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.[75] Simulations over a 3-million-year timespan found a probability of the Roadster colliding with Earth at approximately 6%, or with Venus at approximately 2.5%. These probabilities of collision are similar to those of other near-Earth objects. The half-life for the tested orbits was calculated as approximately 20 million years, but with trajectories varying significantly following a close approach to the Earth–Moon system in 2091.[76]
Musk had originally speculated that the car could drift in space for a billion years.
Potential follow up mission
In August 2019, as the Roadster completed its first orbit around the Sun,[78] Musk stated that SpaceX may one day launch a small spacecraft or Starship to catch up with the Roadster and take photographs or even return it to Earth for studying solar erosion on it just as Apollo 12 did with Surveyor 3 lander's components.[79]
See also
References
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The photo was shared by billionaire Elon Musk on Instagram and SpaceX on Flickr. As you might remember, SpaceX began publishing all of its Flickr photos to the public domain in March 2015, leading Flickr to add a public domain designation just days later.
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a staggering image [...] and so impressive that the video seems somehow unreal. It's the greatest car ad of all time. [...] In 1917, Marcel Duchamp put a urinal on a pedestal, titled it Fountain [...] and called it art. [...] a readymade, his word for a combination of everyday objects reassembled or re-contextualized by an artist.
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images were taken, 16:39-16:50 UT on 8 February 2018 [...] distance of 550 000 km or about 1.4 Lunar distances c.q. 0.0037 AU [...] 30-second exposures taken by Peter Starr and me with the 0.43-m F6.8 remote robotic telescope of Dubbo Observatory in Australia [...] 2073 close encounter [...] is no longer on the table.
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captured the vehicle at a distance of 720.000 km from Earth ... show a flickering effect that suggests that the Tesla Roadster is spinning fast.
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- SeeSat-Lmailing list.
list of 241 observations and growing [...] continue to be observed for about two weeks. [...] know the position of this object to better than a tenth of an arcsecond, [...] Almost nobody is getting data that accurate.
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- S2CID 119328461.
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External links
- "Live Views of Starman (4:13:10)". YouTube. SpaceX. February 6, 2018.
- "0.43-m F6.8 Planewave telescope, Dubbo, AU", Wikimedia Commons, February 9, 2018,
Loop of 4 frames of Roadster moving across the sky
- "Starman cruising through space (00:12)". YouTube. February 11, 2018.
- "Random walk of cars and their collision probabilities with planets". Aerospace. 5 (2): 57. February 13, 2018. .
Real-time
Trajectory animation, past and future events, orbital elements.
- "Where in Space is Tesla Roadster". Where is Tesla Roadster. Unaffiliated. March 27, 2018.
- "Where is Starman? Track Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster in Space!". Where is Roadster. Unaffiliated. February 7, 2018.