You may have recently noticed pictures of a car in space on the Interweb news sites and on your Twitter feeds. If you haven’t, then here it is again.
Just in case you’ve been asleep for the last week, that car with its dummy passenger is in fact CEO Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster with its dummy aboard, dubbed “Starman.” The somewhat unusual payload is part of the Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight, and the car was originally destined for a trip around Mars. However, yesterday it was revealed that the vehicle overshot its destination by just a little bit.
The Launch
All things considered, though, Falcon Heavy had a successful maiden flight, and created some great PR for the company (not that SpaceX really needs it).
The launch vehicle’s liftoff occurred on February 6, at 3.45 p.m., without hitch, and here’s the approximate sequence of the events, as they happened after the launch.
The launch from Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad itself was a success, although it had been delayed slightly due to wind. Both of the side core rockets had successfully made it back to their landing pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (see Figure 3), which made for some awesome photos, but the main center core missed its target barge by 100m and hit the ocean at approximately 500km. The resulting crash left showered debris all over the landing barge, causing damage to the barge’s engines.
That “experimental long coast” should have taken six hours before igniting the second stage engine for a third burn, and sending the car into an Earth-Mars elliptical orbit. In fact, the car should have followed a Hohmann transfer orbit, which is an orbit manoeuvre designed to transfer between two circular orbits of differing orbital radii in the same plane. In other words, a spacecraft orbiting Earth can burn its engine to extend the radii of its orbit into a further orbital position (in this case, Mars). This new path is an elliptical orbit around the Sun, with Earth as its starting position, and Mars as its destination.
In principle, the spacecraft could then decelerate once it reached Mars (obliterating the elliptical orbit), and allow itself to be captured by the Martian gravity into a more circular orbit.
You can see the planned transfer orbit in Figure 4.
There was a small blunder, however, as the third burn caused the second stage to extend its orbit past Mars, and toward the asteroid belt. Those of you who play Kerbal Space Program may have experienced this kind of goof yourselves, when applying your transfer orbit burn for too long. And it seems that this is exactly what happened with the SpaceX vehicle. Musk later admitted that SpaceX had “overcooked” one of the second stage’s booster burns, sending the main module out of its planned trajectory and possibly out into the asteroid belt.
The image shown in Figure 5 was tweeted by Musk the day of the launch, and shows the actual orbital manoeuvre as it occurred, and how it overshot Mars.
There’s no official word on what will happen to the Tesla now, although it is currently on a massive elliptical heliocentric orbit, where it will orbit the Sun for millions or billions of years until it hits something else—or until it gains sentience, becomes V’ger, and returns to Earth seeking its creator.
So that’s a summary of the last couple of days following the launch. There’s a car in space, and humanity now has a new heavy-lift launch vehicle, which is the most powerful operational rocket to have ever existed, and is also, in principle, reusable.
Vox Pops
A minority of detractors on Twitter were asking the same old silly questions that they do whenever any cool space project is undertaken. Questions such as:
“Why doesn’t SpaceX use the money to feed the poor instead of sending a car into space?”
The simple answer is because SpaceX is a private company, and it can do whatever it wants to with its money. It’s funny how you never hear these people ask why we can’t do the same thing with America’s military budget—or with megachurch construction funds.
The more complicated answer to that question is because space R&D has a different budget source compared to one dedicated to “feeding the poor.” Much of space research is funded by industry, and institutes with a vested interest in the space sector. When Lockheed Martin figures out a way to weaponize the homeless, you can be sure there will be an increase in funding toward feeding programs. You need to be able to deactivate a weapon, right?
“Why did they put a car in space in the first place?”
Actually, this isn’t such a silly question.
For a start, rocket tests such as this one require a dummy load, in order to simulate the loads that will affect the rocket during a real launch. It’s just not economical to put a full-price satellite on a maiden voyage. Bad things can happen. So Musk put his roadster on there instead.
“Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring,” said Musk. “The payload will be an original Tesla Roadster, playing ‘Space Oddity,’ on a billion year elliptic Mars orbit.”
It was probably cheaper than a dummy load anyway, and, let’s be honest, it made one hell of a good photograph, as well as synergizing two of Musk’s brands. As far as adverts go, this one was pretty good.
And, of course, beyond the advertising aspects of Musk sending his own car up on his own rocket, it does wonders for STEM outreach.
Most of the comments have been positive however, including this one.
“Whoa! This is like that Heavy Metal video!”
Yeah. It is :D
The Future
What’s next for SpaceX, then?
Falcon 9 will continue to be the company’s main workhorse, and Falcon Heavy will be utilized for transporting larger satellites into space (after much more testing).
Musk announced recently that SpaceX will terminate development on the propulsive landing system for the Dragon capsule, and that Falcon Heavy is no longer being developed for human spaceflight. Efforts will now be focused on developing the SpaceX BFR (Big Falcon Rocket), which will be used to transport people to the Moon and to Mars.
Musk has said that the BFR could be ready to transport people by 2024, with testing beginning as early as next year. But, then again, he also once said the Falcon Heavy would make its test flight in 2013.
Heck, it’s only five years late. And if the launch of the BFR will be anything like the spectacle we saw this week with the Falcon Heavy, the delays will probably be worth it.
Thanks to Mike Killian for letting us use his awesome launch pics. You can follow him on Instagram (Mike Killian Photography) or see more of his work at www.mikekillianphotography.com.