Well here it is, the three-core, two-stage Falcon Heavy rocket was launched today from Cape Canaveral with its "Space Oddity" payload, Musk's own Tesla Roadster:
I must say, they did organize a good party on the ground...
The cat's out of the bag on the destiny of the Tesla roadster. If I understand correctly (correct me if I'm wrong or missed something or I read something wrong) the Tesla, now christened "Starman," will traverse an orbit past the sun to an apogee that nearly matches the farthest distance from the Earth to Mars (400 million Km). The implication is that the Tesla roadster will be captured by the Sun's gravity (
hyperbolic orbit during slingshot, then elliptical again toward Mars)*, and attain a highly elliptical orbit that will interesect all the inner planet's near-circular orbits, while playing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (in the vaccum if space, so no one will hear it
). So there is a microscopic chance of colliding with any of the inner planets in the very distant future or burning in Earth's atmosphere. But most likely it is now just another, very odd and queer metal, plastic and rubber meteor.
*Edit: Big correction here. They released the orbital path. The Sun is nowhere close to being between Mars and Earth, so the Starman was actually launched directly toward Mars but not close enough to Mars and way too fast to get captured by Mars. Instead the Sun's stronger gravity will determine its fate. Still that is way more energy than I anticipated in the upper stage.
Because the Starman was travelling so much faster than I thought, the orbit is a lot less eccentric than I anticipated. While still eccentric, the orbit is a much "fatter" orbit that does not need a "slingshot" past any celestial body, and instead only allows the Sun to capture the Starman away from Earth's (and Mars') gravitational pull.
I was not expecting that. The orbit has so much energy (Starman 's speed) that its orbit does not even intersect the orbits of Venus and Mercury, it just lies outside their orbits, going around them altogether. That is one hell of a shot.
PS I wonder what happened to that wheel of cheese aboard the Dragon/Falcon 9 in 2010... did they serve it at the party?
