Elon Musk's electric red roadster will be launched on the maiden (test) flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, into an orbit near that of Mars. The launch will most likely take place in January 2018, from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Elon’s tweet from early December, about using the Tesla roadster as the payload, looked like a joke ...
… but recently released pictures show that it is for real -
Why the Red Roadster as payload?
Elon Musk explained on Instagram -
Test flights of new rockets usually contain mass simulators in the form of concrete or steel blocks. That seemed extremely boring.
Of course, anything boring is terrible, especially companies, so we decided to send something unusual, something that made us feel.
The payload will be an original Tesla Roadster, playing Space Oddity, on a billion year elliptic Mars orbit.
He also tweeted -
I love the thought of a car drifting apparently endlessly through space and perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future.
In short, this is a test of a rocket system, not a science mission for a spacecraft in some useful orbit. Instead of using a concrete or steel block as a dummy payload, SpaceX will use a Tesla car.
Note from the pictures above that there is lot more room in the payload section for future real payloads. The Falcon Heavy can launch payloads to Mars with up to 16,800 kg mass, i.e., 13 Tesla roadsters at ~1,300 kg each.
On suggestions for other payloads, Elon responded -
Just bear in mind that there is a good chance this monster rocket blows up, so I wouldn't put anything of irreplaceable sentimental value on it.
Is the roadster really going to Mars?
Not really. The payload will be inserted in a precessing Earth-Mars elliptical orbit around the sun; a low energy Hohmann transfer orbit, which in a few years will take the roadster near Mars orbit, but not close to Mars itself. The car might remain in orbit for a billion years.
There will be no rocket engines or thrusters to guide the payload, make orbital corrections or insert into Mars orbit. There will be no solar panels or comm. equipment to communicate back with Earth.
Rocket Recovery
The plan is to land and recover the first and second stage boosters and perhaps the payload fairings too. This is part of the overall goal of making rocket parts reusable and bringing down costs even further.
Two of the three first stage cores will return and land at the launch site; the 3rd will land on a drone-ship. Details on the landing of the second stage and fairings are not available yet.
Falcon Heavy
According to the SpaceX web-site —
Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world by a factor of two. With the ability to lift into orbit over 54 metric tons (119,000 lb), Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, at one-third the cost.
Its first stage is composed of three Falcon 9 nine-engine cores whose 27 Merlin engines together generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, equal to approximately eighteen 747 aircraft. Only the Saturn V moon rocket, last flown in 1973, delivered more payload to orbit.
Payload Carrying Capacity:
Orbit |
Payload Mass |
LEO (~1,000 km) |
63,800 kg |
GTO (~35,786 km) |
26,700 kg |
Mars |
16,800 kg |
Pluto |
3,500 kg |
The Falcon Heavy itself, fully loaded, weighs 1,420,788 kg.
Launch Preparations
The two first-stage boosters on the sides have flown before in Falcon 9 missions.
The launch of Falcon Heavy has been delayed by many years, due to the complexity of designing the heavy rocket; there is a small likelihood that the Jan 2018 deadline will be missed as well.
As on Jan 2, Falcon Heavy has been at the launch pad a few times - upright, taken down, upright again. There will be a static fire test soon and then preparations for the final launch.
Here is an animation of the Falcon Heavy flight, made over two years ago -
Space Oddity
Here is David Bowie's "Space Oddity", rendered by former astronaut Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station. Elon did not clarify which version of “Space Oddity” will be played on the flight.
References
- FCC APPLICATION FOR SPECIAL TEMPORARY AUTHORITY — apps.fcc.gov/…
- SpaceX Falcon Heavy page — www.spacex.com/...
- Falcon Heavy wiki — en.wikipedia.org/…
- First Image of Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster getting ready to go to Mars on a SpaceX rocket — electrek.co/…
- Falcon Heavy Demo Mission Payload Discussion — forum.nasaspaceflight.com/...
- A Beautiful Rocket Launch — www.dailykos.com/...