Elon Musks Roadster is probably still cruising through space, two years on – The South African

I know that Elon Musk does many questionable and sometimes outrageous things, but remember that one time when he launched a Tesla Roadster into space using SpaceXs Falcon Heavy rocket?

Yep, that outrageous thing. The launch was a year ago, on 6 February 2019. That Roadster with his its lone occupant a spacesuit-wearing mannequin named Starman is probably still out there.

According to the experts, the sporty red car is still cruising through our solar system. And theres a simple way for you to keep track of the Roadster and Starman too.

Simply head over to Where is Roadster, a website created by programmer Ben Pearson to keep track of the vehicles location. According to the site, the vehicle is currently near Mars.

That means its roughly 298m kilometres from Earth, travelling at a speed of approximately 2985 kilometres per hour.

Starman is on a trajectory to pass through the Red Planets orbit, but it will never actually reach the Red Planet or enter its atmosphere, as intended.

The Tesla and its driver is expected to continue orbiting the sun as part experiment and part art project. There may even be a Musk Museum of Crazy Things by then.

Two years in space wouldnt have been kind to the Tesla Roadster, because well, the car was designed for Earths atmosphere, and the vast expanse of space.

The vehicle was initially launched by SpaceX to demonstrate the Falcon Heavy rockets capabilities. The Tesla Roadster launch was its maiden voyage.

Musk wanted to prove that the rocket could propel something in space which would be capable of reaching Mars. Well done, Super Heavy, mission accomplished.

If all is going according to plan if space hasnt destroyed it yet, or Starman wasnt abducted by aliens that sporty red car is still out there and will continue orbiting the Sun.

Probably. Researchers calculated that the Roadster will have a fairly close encounter with Earth in 2091. If Starman is ever to set foot on Earth again, that would be the perfect time to send out a recovery craft.

According to Pearsons data, the Roadster has clocked more than 1.6 billion kilometres of space travel and is well into its second orbit around our Sun.

Back in 2019, anorbit modelling study predicted a 6% chance of the Roadster crashing into Earth in the next 1m years. The same study found that theres a 2.5% chance the car will crash into Venus.

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Elon Musks Roadster is probably still cruising through space, two years on - The South African