Elon Musk, together with the space technologies company SpaceX, of which he is the CEO, launched the Roadster vehicle of Tesla, the automobile company of which he is also the CEO, into space five years ago. So where is the car now?
Five years ago, on February 6, 2018, SpaceX launched Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster car into space with a Falcon Heavy rocket. Unquestionably, this was a clever show for both Elon Musk and his newly developed Falcon Heavy rocket.
At that time, SpaceX had to prove its reliability and competence for space. It is not known whether launching a Tesla Roadster and the model Starman in the driver’s seat was the best advertising way for SpaceX, but there was no one who did not hear it.
Where is the Roadster and Its Driver, Starman?
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, at that time, announced the success rate of the launch as 50 percent. However, the launch went completely smoothly, and the Roadster and Starman were successfully launched into space. In fact, the vehicle has orbited the Sun four times so far.
According to the website whereisroadster.com, which has tracked the trajectory of the vehicle since launch, the Roadster is 325,978,889 km from Earth and is moving towards us at 12,730 km/h. This Roadster has also exceeded the range guarantee 70,212 times. However, the vehicle will get very close to Mars around 2035, but it will take 2047 and 2050 to approach Earth.
The researchers even tried to estimate the probability of the car hitting the Earth. According to a non-reviewed article, the probability of the vehicle hitting Earth in the next 15 million years is 22 percent. The Roadster has traveled more than four billion kilometers in space so far. To give an example to visualize this distance in your mind; we can say that this distance is equivalent to driving all roads in the world 63 times.
