Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster is an electric sports car that served as the dummy payload for the February 2018 Falcon Heavy test flight and is now an artificial satellite of the Sun. "Starman", a mannequin dressed in a spacesuit, occupies the driver's seat. The car and rocket are products of Tesla and SpaceX, both companies founded by Elon Musk. This 2008-model Roadster was previously used by Musk for commuting, and is the only consumer car sent into space.
The car, mounted on the rocket's second stage, acquired enough velocity to escape Earth's gravity and enter an elliptical heliocentric orbit crossing the orbit of Mars. The orbit reaches a maximum distance from the Sun at aphelion of 1.66 astronomical units (au). During the early portion of the voyage outside the Earth's atmosphere, live video was transmitted back to the mission control center for slightly over four hours.
Advertising analysts noted Musk's sense of brand management and use of new media for his decision to launch a Tesla into space. While some commenters voiced concern that the car contributed to space debris, others saw it as a work of art.
Video Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster
Background
In March 2017, SpaceX's founder, Elon Musk, stated that because the launch of the new Falcon Heavy vehicle was risky it would carry the "silliest thing we can imagine". In December 2017, Musk announced that the payload would be his personal Tesla Roadster. Later that month, photos of the car were taken and publicly released prior to payload encapsulation.
One of the goals of SpaceX for the planned flight was to demonstrate their new rocket could carry a payload as far as the orbit of Mars. The company had offered NASA to carry a scientific payload; NASA did not accept.
Following the successful launch, the Roadster became the first consumer vehicle sent into space. Three bespoke manned vehicles have previously been sent into space: the lunar rovers of Apollo 15, 16, and 17 in the 1970s; all three were left on the Moon.
Roadster as payload
The car was permanently mounted on the rocket in an inclined position above the payload adapter in order to balance the mass distribution.
Positioned in the driver's seat is "Starman", a full-scale human mannequin clad in a SpaceX pressure spacesuit. It was placed with the right hand on the steering wheel and the left elbow resting on the open window sill. The mannequin was named after the David Bowie song "Starman" and the car's sound system was set before launch to continuously loop the Bowie song "Space Oddity".
There is a copy of Douglas Adams' 1979 novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the glovebox, along with references to the book in the form of a towel and a sign on the dashboard that reads "DON'T PANIC!". 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". The car includes a copy of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy on a 5D optical disc created as a proof of concept for high-density long-lasting data dissemination by the Arch Mission Foundation and given to Musk who is a fan of the trilogy.
Maps Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster
Trajectory
A license for the launch was issued by the US Office of Commercial Space Transportation on February 2, 2018. The rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center at 15:45 EST (20:45 UTC) on February 6, 2018, and was initially placed in Earth parking orbit while remaining 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.
Like all its previous launches, SpaceX live streamed a video feed. It started at the rocket's launch, and once in space showed the Roadster at different angles from cameras mounted inside and outside the car. This is possible because the Roadster remains attached to the Falcon second stage booster from which camera booms are attached at different angles surrounding the car.
SpaceX did not say how long the feed was to run and 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. The images were released by SpaceX into the public domain on its Flickr account.
Following the launch, the car and booster were given the Satellite Catalog Number 43205, named "TESLA ROADSTER/FALCON 9H", along with the COSPAR designation 2018-017A. The JPL Horizons system publishes solutions for the trajectory as target body "-143205".
The car and booster were launched into an heliocentric orbit that will cross the orbit of Mars and reach a distance of 1.66 au from the Sun. With an inclination of roughly 1 degree to the ecliptic plane, compared to Mars' 1.85° inclination, the trajectory by design cannot intercept Mars, so the car will not fly by Mars nor enter an orbit around Mars. This was the second object launched by SpaceX to leave Earth orbit (after the DSCOVR mission to Sun-Earth L1).
Even if the launch had targeted an actual Mars transfer orbit, the booster on which the car is attached lacks the propellant, maneuvering, and communications capabilities required to enter Mars orbit. Launching into this orbit has demonstrated that Falcon Heavy can launch payloads that could reach Mars. The maximum speed of the car relative to the Sun will be close to 121,600 km/h (75,600 mph) at perihelion.
Cultural impact
The car in space quickly became a topic for Internet memes.Western Australia Police distributed a picture of a Radar gun aimed at the Roadster whilst above Australia.?koda produced a parody video of a ?koda Superb being driven to Mars (a village in central France). An attempt was made by Donut Media to launch a Hot Wheels-sized Tesla Model X to the stratosphere using a weather balloon.
Some news reports observed a similarity between the real pictures of a car orbiting the Earth and the title sequence of the 1981 animation film Heavy Metal, where a space traveler lands on Earth in a two-seater Chevrolet Corvette convertible.
The SpaceX launch live stream reached over 2.3 million concurrent viewers on YouTube, which makes it the second most watched live event on the platform as of 2018, being surpassed only by the Red Bull Stratos jump in 2012.
Reactions
The choice of this car as a dummy payload was variously interpreted as a shrewd marketing move for Tesla, a work of art, or a contribution to space debris.
Marketing move
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."
Work of art
Alice Gorman, a lecturer in archaeology and space studies at Flinders University, Australia, said that its primary purpose is symbolic communication, that "the red sports car symbolises masculinity - power, wealth and speed - 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." Gorman wrote that "the spacesuit is also about death. [...] The Starman was never alive, but now he's haunting space."
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.
Space debris
Orbital-debris expert Darren McKnight said that since the car is out of Earth orbit, he sees no risk here, and added: "The enthusiasm and interest that [Musk] generates more than offsets the infinitesimally small 'littering' of the cosmos." Tommy Sanford, director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, opined that the car and its rocket stage are no more "space junk" than the mundane material usually launched on other test flights. Mass simulators are often deliberately placed in a graveyard orbit or sent on a deep space trajectory, where they are not a hazard. 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."
The Planetary Society was concerned that launching a non-sterile object to interplanetary space may risk biological contamination of a planetary object. Scientists at Purdue University thought it was the "dirtiest" man-made object ever sent into space, in terms of bacteria amount, noting the car had previously driven on Los Angeles freeways. Although the vehicle will be sterilized by solar radiation over time, they are concerned some bacteria might live on in pieces of plastic which could contaminate Mars in the distant future.
Orbit tracking
The car and second stage were passivated by intentionally removing remaining chemical and electrical energy, at which point the car and rocket booster 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. 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 predictions
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.
Musk had originally speculated that the car could drift in space for a billion years. According to chemist William Carroll, 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.
See also
- List of artificial objects in heliocentric orbit
- List of passive satellites
References
External links
- Views of Starman on YouTube
- Photographic animation of Roadster moving across the sky, at Wikimedia Commons
- Where is Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster with Starman?, Realtime location of the Roadster's location
- Where is Tesla Roadster in Space, real-time orbit of the Roadster
- Video of the Roadster cruising through space on YouTube
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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