Starman and Elon Musk’s midnight cherry Tesla roadster were spotted by the Elecnor Deimos Space Surveillance & Tracking Centre in Southern Spain, racing away from Earth at a distance of 520,000 km, beyond the dark side of the Moon.
The folks at the Virtual Telescope project also aimed their telescope in the region predicted by orbital calculations and located the fastest roadster in the universe.
No word on whether Starman was crooning David Bowie songs, although he probably was and still is.
The Final Burn
After a successful test of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and a 5-hour MEO orbital trip around Earth Tuesday night, a final burn of the second stage rocket propelled the roadster out of Earth orbit and into the heavens. Soon thereafter, Elon Musk tweeted -
Apparently, the rocket had enough juice left to shoot the roadster into an orbit farther than originally planned, far enough to go far beyond Mars and reach the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Most likely, the roadster is still attached to the upper stage rocket, as shown in the artist’s impression below. Or maybe it is traveling all by itself now.
Credit: SpaceX
Jonathan McDowell indicated that the roadster is still attached to the final stage rocket.
The Expected Orbit
New calculations performed by researchers indicate that the final orbit is a bit closer to Mars than first indicated by SpaceX.
Here is the description of the Tesla Roadster spacecraft at the JPL Horizons site -
Revised: Feb 07, 2018 Tesla Roadster (spacecraft) -143205
Tesla Roadster (Starman, 2018-017A)
Dummy payload from first launch of SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle consisting of a standard Tesla Roadster automobile and a spacesuit-wearing mannequin nicknamed Starman.
Also includes a Hot Wheels toy model Roadster on the car's dash with a mini-Starman inside. A data storage device placed inside the car contains a copy of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" novels. A plaque on the attachment fitting between the Falcon Heavy upper stage and the Tesla is etched with the names of more than 6,000 SpaceX employees.
After orbiting the Earth for 6 hours, a third-stage burn-to-depletion was completed at approximately 02:30 UTC Feb 7, placing the dummy payload in a heliocentric orbit having a perihelion of 0.99 au and aphelion ~1.7 au.
Payload mass: ~1250 Kg
(1 au = average Earth-Sun distance = 150 million km)
Tracking Starman
Asteroid and space debris hunting telescopes are our best bet for locating and tracking the space roadster. And that’s why the Elecnor Deimos Space Surveillance & Tracking Centre in Southern Spain and the Virtual Telescope project were the first to spot it.
According to www.virtualtelescope.eu/…, the car was about as bright as magnitude 15.5, requiring a large (more than 16″ – 400 mm in diameter) to be seen visually.
The change in brightness in the Deimos video seems to indicate that the spacecraft is rotating (tumbling).
These observations will help identify the orbital parameters of this dummy spacecraft more accurately and predict its path for many years to come.
After next week, astronomers say, the car will be too far away from Earth to track with telescopes.
The Future of Starman and the Roadster
According to the new calculations, Starman and the Roadster will pass within about 110 million km of Mars on June 8 and cross the red planet's orbit in July before reaching apogee -- about 252 million km -- on Nov. 19. Then, head back towards the Sun with perigee just inside Earth’s orbit on Sept. 1, 2019. Orbital period will be about 1.6 years.
According to calculations done using the JPL ephemeris, Jonathan McDowell said that the closest predicted approach to Mars between now and 2030 is 7 million km on 2020 Oct 8. The Roadster will not return anywhere near Earth by 2030; closest it will get is on Mar 2021 at a distant 45 million km.
Within a few centuries, most of the non-metal parts of the roadster will disintegrate. See newatlas.com/… for a vivid description of the deterioration that will occur within the next few centuries.
The probability of a collision with Mars or Earth are slim. Will the roadster hang out there for a billion years? Most likely not, according to experts. Its elliptical orbit will be perturbed by the solar wind, the gravity of Jupiter and the Sun and become more eccentric, get closer to the Sun on each pass, and quite likely, within a few million years, it will get swallowed by the Sun.
Updates
Starman/Tesla/Falcon is now 835,000 km from Earth. Here's another recent observation of it. For comparison, Earth-Moon distance = 384,400 km.
A million miles away ...
Epilogue
“Close to the morning twilight, and pointing close to the Moon, at a very low elevation over the horizon of about 20 degrees, the observation conditions were really challenging” affirms Jaime Nomen, director of Deimos Sky Survey. So, why did Starman and the roadster fly past the dark side of the moon? Hmmm …
Further Reading
- There's a Starman Waiting in the Sky — www.dailykos.com/...
- Live from Space - the Tesla Roadster with Starman — www.dailykos.com/...
- Falcon Heavy is Ready for Liftoff — www.dailykos.com/...
- Where Is Elon Musk's Space Tesla Actually Going? — www.theatlantic.com/…
- SpaceX sent a nerdy Easter egg into space, but can anyone read it? — arstechnica.com/…
- Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster leaves Earth with 'easter eggs' — www.collectspace.com/...
