Key Takeaways

• Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster has been traveling through space for more than eight years.
• The car isn't orbiting Earth or Mars—it has become an artificial satellite of the Sun.
• Its trajectory brings it near Mars in 2035 and back toward Earth in 2047.

By Samuel López | USA Herald

More than eight years ago, Elon Musk launched his personal Tesla Roadster into space with a spacesuit-clad mannequin named “Starman” behind the wheel.

It wasn't a movie prop or computer-generated publicity stunt. The car really went into space—and it is still out there.

On February 6, 2018, SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of its massive Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Rather than risk an expensive scientific satellite on an unproven rocket, SpaceX needed a demonstration payload.

Musk chose his own midnight-cherry-red 2010 Tesla Roadster.

SpaceX confirms that Falcon Heavy's first flight successfully carried the Roadster and Starman into an orbit around the Sun.

What began as one of the strangest payloads in the history of spaceflight has consequently become something even stranger: a human-made object effectively behaving like a tiny asteroid.

The images became instantly iconic.

Starman sat behind the wheel with one hand positioned on the steering wheel as the brilliant blue Earth floated in the background. Cameras transmitted the surreal scene until the spacecraft's battery power was exhausted.

Then Falcon Heavy's upper stage performed its final burn.

The Roadster escaped Earth's gravitational neighborhood and entered an elliptical orbit around the Sun. NASA's historical account says the trajectory carried the Tesla to a point extending beyond the orbit of Mars, although an actual encounter with Mars was neither planned nor possible during that initial trajectory.

And there it has remained.

The Roadster is not orbiting Mars.

It isn't orbiting Earth.

It is orbiting the Sun.

Its orbital period is approximately 557 days, or about 1.525 Earth years. The orbit brings the vehicle to roughly Earth's distance from the Sun at its closest point and carries it beyond Mars' orbital distance at its farthest. NASA's JPL Horizons system catalogs the Roadster/upper-stage object and provides the orbital solution used to predict its trajectory.

In other words, Starman has been taking an extraordinarily long road trip—with no destination and no way home.

But Do We Actually Know Where the Tesla Is?

There's an important distinction.

No one is receiving a GPS signal from Starman.

The Roadster and Falcon Heavy upper stage were passivated after launch and no longer transmit telemetry. Its location today is therefore calculated from astronomical observations and orbital mechanics rather than continuously reported by equipment aboard the vehicle.

Think of astronomers predicting where a baseball will land after measuring its direction and speed—except the baseball is traveling around the Sun for decades while the gravitational influence of planets gradually affects its path.

That means predictions become increasingly uncertain farther into the future.

Nevertheless, scientists can calculate where Starman should be with considerable accuracy over meaningful periods of time.

And its future itinerary contains at least two particularly interesting encounters.

The Roadster already made a relatively close approach to Mars on October 7, 2020, passing millions of miles from the planet.

But a considerably closer encounter is predicted for April 22, 2035.

Current trajectory calculations place the Roadster within a few million kilometers of Mars, although the precise distance remains subject to uncertainty. Astronomer and orbital-tracking analyses have identified the 2035 encounter as one of Starman's most notable upcoming planetary approaches.

By then, telescopes operating on or around Mars could potentially provide humanity with another opportunity to detect the wandering automobile.

Actually resolving a recognizable Tesla, however, would be far more difficult. At astronomical distances, Starman would generally appear as little more than a faint point of light.

Perhaps the most fascinating date is January 2047.

That's when orbital calculations predict Starman will make its first significant return toward Earth's neighborhood since departing in 2018.

Current estimates place the Roadster roughly 3 million miles—or about 5 million kilometers—from Earth during that encounter.

That is nowhere near an Earth impact.

But astronomically speaking, it's close enough that powerful Earth-based telescopes should have a realistic opportunity to find Starman again.

New observations would also be extremely valuable because astronomers could refine the Roadster's orbit after decades without direct measurements.

What Does a Tesla Look Like After Years in Deep Space?

That may be the biggest mystery.

The photographs everyone remembers show a pristine red Roadster.

The vehicle that exists today has spent more than eight years exposed to an environment automobiles were never designed to survive.

There is no atmosphere protecting it from ultraviolet solar radiation. There is no garage shielding it from extreme temperature cycles, energetic particles or micrometeoroids.

Paint, plastics, leather, rubber and other organic materials would be especially vulnerable to prolonged radiation exposure.

Without actually observing the Roadster at sufficiently close range, however, nobody can say exactly what condition it is in. The recognizable automobile may be deteriorating piece by piece while continuing to follow the same fundamental orbit.

For now, Starman remains seated behind the wheel as the Roadster continues silently through interplanetary space.

No engine.

No radio transmission.

Just Starman sitting behind the wheel of a red convertible, completing another lap around the Sun approximately every 557 days.

And somewhere around April 2035, Mars gets another look at humanity's strangest automobile.

Then, in 2047, Starman comes back our way.