Over seven years ago, on February 6, 2018, SpaceX launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster and the mannequin “Starman” into space. The car has traveled about 3.5 trillion miles and completed around 4.616 orbits around the Sun, exceeding its warranty by over 97,000 times and achieving an impressive fuel economy of 11,782.9 kilometers per liter. A website tracks its journey, noting it takes approximately 557 days to orbit the Sun. Interestingly, the car was mistakenly classified as an asteroid earlier this year. It is expected to make a close approach to Earth in 2091.
It has been just over seven years since SpaceX conducted the inaugural test launch of its formidable Falcon Heavy rocket. The launch in February 2018 also took with it SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster, along with a mannequin named Starman, into the cosmos, and this cherry-red sports car continues to orbit the sun. The website Whereisroadster.com, developed by Ben Pearson to monitor the red car’s journey through space, consistently updates its location and calculates the distance traveled. As stated by the site, it has been precisely 7 years and 14 days since the vehicle’s launch. According to their calculations, the Roadster has “driven” approximately 3.5 trillion miles.
From Mr. Pearson’s findings, it takes the car around 557 days to complete an orbit around the sun. Thus, since its launch in 2018, the vehicle has surpassed its 36,000-mile warranty by over 97,002 times. “It has attained a fuel efficiency of 11,782.9 kilometres per litre,” reads the site.
The car notably played David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ at the beginning of its journey. Consequently, had the battery and speakers still been operational, the onboard mannequin would have experienced Bowie’s classic over 698,000 times.
The mannequin known as Starman, in comparison, has completed roughly 4.6161 orbits around the Sun since the launch. “The vehicle has travelled far enough to traverse all of the world’s roads 86.8 times. It has been 7 years, 14 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes, and 58 seconds since launch,” it remarked.
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Interestingly, earlier this year, Mr. Musk’s car was momentarily and mistakenly identified as an asteroid, as reported by CNET. The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center released a bulletin on January 2 announcing 2018 CN41 as a newly discovered near-Earth object. However, a subsequent notice clarified that the vehicle had been incorrectly classified as an asteroid.
“The following day, it was indicated that the orbit aligns with that of an artificial object, 2018-017A, which is the Falcon Heavy Upper stage carrying the Tesla Roadster. The designation 2018 CN41 is being removed and will be marked as omitted,” the notice stated.
In the meantime, a team at Whereisroadster.com has calculated that the red sports car is expected to have a close encounter with Earth in 2091, when it will pass within a few hundred thousand kilometers of the planet where it originated.
It is worth noting that Starman and Elon Musk’s Roadster were launched into space on February 6, 2018.