There's a Starman Waiting in the Sky

image: SpaceX

This is the freakiest, most surrealistic image related to Space I have ever seen.

On February 6/7, as part of the Maiden Flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy, a Tesla Roadster with a dummy called Starman behind the wheel (and various other references to pop-culture tucked in the car) has been orbiting Earth in a 180 x 6950 km orbit for 6 hours, after which it was boosted into a heliocentric Apollo orbit with aphelion near the orbit of Mars.

Yep, that's right: a car in space! That is something beyond my wildest dreams.

Image: M. Langbroek

Above is the  ground track of the slightly under 6 hours earth orbit. Launch was at 20:45 UT (6 February) from pad 39A at Cape Canaveral; SECO 2 was over Africa 28m 52s later, boosting it into a 180x 6950 km, 29 degree inclined elliptical coasting orbit. After just under two orbital revolutions, a third and final boost sent it into heliocentric orbit. The boost was widely observed from the US West Coast (see for example this hefty 256 Mb movie shot by Derek Breit in Morgan Hill, California).

The heliocentric orbit is below. It has perihelion at 0.98 AU, aphelion at 1.67 AU and an orbital inclination of 1.05 degrees. The orbital period is 1.53 year. If this was an asteroid instead of a rocket stage and a car, we would call it an Apollo orbit.

image: M. Langbroek

The aphelion distance of the orbit is similar to the aphelion of Mars, but located near the perihelion of Mars.

The rocket stage and car will periodically come back to Earth's orbit. Near 27 January 2073, the rocket stage and car might make an actual close approach to Earth. My current orbit integration with MERCURY 6 has it passing at a nominal distance of ~0.004 AU or ~1.6 Lunar distances, and likely will be in reach of telescopes on Earth then. [EDIT 15 Feb 2018: after new orbit updates based on optical observations, the 2073 close approach is off the table]. The real distance might be more (or less) as the current orbit probably isn't very accurate (SpaceX earlier presented an orbit that was dead wrong) and the object(s), being of low area-to-mass ratio and shiny, moreover will be strongly influenced by Solar Radiation Pressure, which will perturb the orbit and is difficult to model over a 55 year timespan.

A  less close approach (nominal values in the order of 9 Lunar distances) will happen in March 2137. Close approaches to Mars will not happen over the next three centuries.

image: SpaceX

image: SpaceX

image: SpaceX

To me, this was the most exciting launch since I watched the first Shuttle launch on tv when I was a teenager. That big Falcon Heavy roaring into the sky was very impressive. Even more impressive was the synchonous return of both side boosters, landing smoothly and brotherly next to each other. The core booster alas did not fare that well, and smashed to bits in sea.

And then there were those surreal images of the Tesla orbiting earth, with "Starman" at the steering wheel. I reckon these will be iconic images for a very long time.

The whole idea of launching a car into orbit is crazy of course, and it has drawn critique from some people. I do not share that critique. This is one of the daring, crazy, whimsical things that is so characteristic of humanity, and it fits iconic moments in exploration. The World needs people who are a bit crazy, in a good way. Otherwise it would remain dull and boring, with very little progress.

Say what you want of Elon Musk, and of course this is primarily a publicity stunt (and brilliant marketing), but it appears Elon Musk is giving the human space program a real boost of the kind we haven't seen in a long time. After this stunt, I for the first time in my life get the feeling that I might really see humans walk on Mars in my lifetime. After all, if we can send a Tesla Roadster towards the orbit of Mars, we can send more. To my mind, this was absolutely awesome!

UPDATE: see more in my follow-up post here with my telescopic imagery of the Falcon Heavy/Tesla Roadster in Space!

And I am quotes (and some of my imagery features) in this article on the CNN website.