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Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster

The Tesla Roadster with Earth in the background
Operator	SpaceX
Manufacturer	Tesla
Instrument type	Inert mass Broadcast device
Function	Boilerplate payload
Website	spacex.com
Properties
Mass	≈1,300 kg (2,900 lb)
Host spacecraft
Launch date	February 6, 2018
Rocket	Falcon Heavy
Launch site	Kennedy LC-39A
COSPAR ID	2018-017A
Orbit	Heliocentric Perihelion 0.9861 AU Aphelion 1.6779 AU Inclination 1.093° Orbital period 1.537 year

Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is a sports car owned by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk that served as the dummy payload for the Falcon Heavy test flight on February 6, 2018. The electric car and Falcon Heavy rocket were both made by Musk's companies, Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX. It is the first consumer car sent into space, and had previously been used by Musk to commute around Los Angeles.

The rocket's second stage, with the car attached to it, had sufficient velocity to escape Earth's gravity and enter an elliptical heliocentric orbit that crosses the orbit of Mars, reaching an aphelion (maximum distance from the Sun) of 1.68 au. During the early portion of its voyage, it functioned as a broadcast device, sending live video back to Earth for slightly over four hours.

Reactions to the Roadster were varied, some observers saw it as a marketing success for Tesla, while others interpreted it as an art object, and others saw it as space debris.

Objective

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According to SpaceX, the purpose of launching a large heavy object during the Falcon Heavy test flight was to demonstrate that the rocket can carry payloads as far as the orbit of Mars. Traditionally concrete or steel blocks are used as ballast.

In March 2017 Musk stated that the launch of the new Falcon Heavy vehicle was risky, and would carry the "silliest thing we can imagine". On December 1, 2017 he said that the payload would be his personal Tesla car, subsequently verifying that the use of the car was not a joke. On December 22, Musk published pictures of the car taken before payload encapsulation.

The launch makes the Roadster the first consumer car sent into space. Three manned rovers were sent to space on the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions in the 1970s and these vehicles were left on the Moon. The Roadster is one of two formerly manned vehicles in solar orbit, along with LM-4 Snoopy, Apollo 10's lunar module ascent stage launched in 1969.

Roadster payload

The first-generation Tesla Roadster is an all-electric sports car. The midnight cherry Roadster launched into space is one of Elon Musk's privately owned vehicles. Musk said in a 2012 interview that the Roadster was "the one I drive to work".

Positioned in the driver's seat is "Starman", a full-scale human mannequin named after the David Bowie song "Starman" and clad in SpaceX's pressure spacesuit. He has his right hand on the steering wheel and left elbow resting on the open window sill. The car's sound system was said to be looping the Bowie song "Space Oddity" even though no human can hear sound in space, it was intended as a symbolic gesture.

A number of whimsical objects were put in the Roadster. There is a copy of Douglas Adams' 1979 novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the glovebox, along with a towel (a reference to the book) and a sign on the dashboard that reads "Don't Panic!" (another reference to the book). A Hot Wheels miniature Roadster with a miniature Starman are installed on the dashboard. A plaque bearing the names of the employees who worked on the project is underneath the car, and a message on the vehicle's circuit board reads "Made on Earth by humans". A copy of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series on a 5D optical data storage disc was included after a request from the Arch Mission Foundation.

Launch

A license for the launch was issued by the US Office of Commercial Space Transportation on February 2, 2018. The car was installed in the Falcon Heavy rocket at an inclined position above the payload adapter in order to account for the mass distribution. The rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center at 15:45 EST (20:45 UTC) on February 6, 2018, and initially placed in Earth parking orbit while still attached to the Falcon Heavy second stage. After a longer-than-usual six-hour coast phase through the Van Allen radiation belts, thereby demonstrating a new capability requested by the U.S. Air Force for direct geostationary orbit (GEO) insertion of heavy intelligence satellites, the second stage reignited for the Earth-escape trajectory.

SpaceX streamed a video feed on YouTube, starting at the rocket's launch, showing the Roadster and the mannequin from three cameras mounted inside the car, and from cameras on booms on the outside.

SpaceX did not say how long the feed was to run, and Musk had said the car's battery would last for about twelve hours, but the live stream actually ran for just over four hours. The video and images were released by SpaceX into the public domain.

Following the launch, the payload was given the USSPACECOM Satellite Catalog Number of 43205 with a description of "Tesla Roadster/Falcon SH" along with the COSPAR International Designator of 2018-017A. The Roadster remains attached to the second stage.

Orbit

The car was launched into an elliptical orbit around the Sun that will cross the orbit of Mars and reach a distance of 1.68 au from the Sun. The trajectory was not designed to intercept Mars, so the car will not fly by Mars nor enter an orbit around Mars.

Even if the launch targeted an actual Mars transfer orbit, the Falcon Heavy upper stage, which is still attached to the car, lacks the propellant, maneuvering, and communications capabilities required to enter Mars orbit. The purpose of launching the Roadster into this heliocentric orbit is to demonstrate that the Falcon Heavy can launch payloads that could reach Mars. It is moving away from Earth at a speed of 12,908 km/h (8,021 mph).

Observations

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. In 2020, the car will pass about 6.9 million kilometers (4.3 million miles) from Mars, well outside Mars' gravitational sphere of influence.

The Virtual Telescope Project observed the Tesla two days after its launch, where it had a magnitude of 15.5, comparable to Pluto's moon Charon. The Roadster was automatically spotted and logged by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope operated by the University of Hawaii. The car was observed by the Deimos Sky Survey (DeSS) at a distance of 720,000 kilometres (450,000 mi) with a flashing effect suggesting spinning.

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. By February 11, 2018, astrometry measurements from 241 independent observations had been collated, refining the positions to within one-tenth of an arcsecond—more accurate than for most observations of objects in space.

Future

Musk speculates the car could drift in space for a billion years. Solar radiation, cosmic radiation, and micrometeoroid impacts will structurally damage the car over time. Radiation will eventually break down any material with carbon–carbon bonds, including carbon fiber parts. Tires, paint, plastic and leather might last only about a year, while carbon fiber parts will last considerably longer. Eventually, only the aluminum frame, inert metals, and glass not shattered by meteoroids will remain.

A draft paper uploaded to arXiv, based on calculations starting from February 10, 2018 and evaluating 240 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.

Reactions

Reactions to the Roadster were varied, some observers saw it as a marketing success for Tesla, while others interpreted it as an art object, and others saw it as space debris.

Gimmick

Musk was lauded as a visionary marketer and brand manager by controlling both the timing and the content of his corporate public relations. After the launch, Scientific American said using a car was not entirely pointless, in the sense that something of that size and weight was necessary for a meaningful test. "Thematically, it was a perfect fit" to use the Tesla car, and there was no reason not to take the opportunity to remind the auto industry that Musk was challenging the status quo in that arena, as well as in space. Advertising Age agreed with Business Insider that the Roadster space launch was the "greatest ever car commercial without a dime spent on advertising", demonstrating that Musk is "miles ahead of the rest" in reaching young consumers, where "mere mortals scrabble about spending millions to fight each other over seconds of air time", Musk "just executes his vision." Alex Hern, technology reporter for The Guardian, said the choice to launch a car was a "hybrid of genuine breakthrough and nerd-baiting publicity stunt" without "any real point beyond generating good press pics", which should not detract from the much more important technological milestone represented by the launch of the rocket itself.

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."

Art

The Verge likened the Roadster to a "Readymade" work of art, such as Marcel Duchamp's 1917 piece Fountain, created by placing an everyday object in an unusual position, context and orientation. Some news reports observed a similarity between the real pictures of a car orbiting above a planet and the title sequence of the 1981 film Heavy Metal.

Space debris

Newspaper articles published in Europe criticized the launch of the Tesla as crass or irresponsible. Hugh Lewis, an expert in space debris at the University of Southampton, tweeted "Intentionally launching a car to a long-lived orbit is not what you want to hear from a company planning to fly 1000s satellites in LEO." Orbital-debris expert Darren McKnight said that since the car is out of Earth orbit, he sees no risk here, but "The enthusiasm and interest that generates more than offsets the infinitesimally small 'littering' of the cosmos." Science writer Mark Kaufman said that Musk's orbiting car was "sensationalized" and a "grotesque show of wealth", as well as a missed opportunity to collect some minimal astronomical data by attaching cheap instrumentation to some basic platform instead of sending a car. However, it was no more "space junk" than the mundane material normally used to test rockets, which is deliberately placed either in a graveyard orbit or a deep space trajectory, where it is not a hazard, as in the case of this Falcon Heavy test.

Some have criticized launching a non-sterile object to interplanetary space that may risk biological contamination of a planetary object.

See also

• List of artificial objects in heliocentric orbit
• Humanity Star

References

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External links

• Views of Starman on YouTube
• Photographic animation of Roadster moving across the sky, at Wikimedia Commons
• Where is Tesla Roadster in Space, real-time orbit of the Roadster

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Category

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