Tesla successfully completed the maneuver and went to Mars

Starman and his space Tesla sent the latest photo from the orbit of the Earth. This was announced by Ilon Musk on his Twitter. It is worth recalling that the car did not fly to Mars itself, it was launched using a heavy Falcon Heavy booster. Recently, a rocket was launched for the first time in history in the United States, and, despite Mask’s fear, everything went relatively well.

At a press conference held the other day, Musk said that the entire team of his company was watching with interest the flight of an electric vehicle in open space.


“There will be enough batteries for about 12 hours of operation, this is the roughest estimate. After the batteries of the electric car sit down, the flight will continue in complete silence. Perhaps Tesla will "plow open spaces" of the solar system for millions or even billions of years. Maybe the car will be discovered by an alien civilization, which will find it difficult to understand why there is a clear ground vehicle in space, ”said Mask.


Unfortunately, the electric car will soon be silent forever. By the way, questions have already been raised that all this is just PR. But the answer is one - even if it is so, then a very well-organized PR, high-quality, eye-catching in itself. We will remember this “advertising campaign” of Tesla for a very long time.

According to Mask, he likes the absurdity of the very idea of ​​finding a car in outer space. Usually these are only probes, and only now something else appeared in their place. Now the car leaves the Earth and goes far away, to the asteroid belt and other regions of the system. If the trajectory chosen by SpaceX specialists is correct, then sooner or later the machine will cross the orbit of the Red Planet.


In any case, all this will take a huge amount of time. So far, the Roadster speed is unknown, but it is clearly not too high. But Mars is far away from us. So the car’s journey to a destination can take years and years before it reaches the Red Planet.

The car itself will be gradually destroyed as a result of collisions with micrometeorites and the effects of cosmic radiation. Experts say that all organic substances that are used to make the body and other electric vehicle elements are constantly exposed to hard radiation in the open space, which leads to the destruction of carbon-carbon bonds and covalent bonds between carbon and hydrogen .. As a result, over time they degraded.

The first will be spoiled carbon fiber car frame. In the end, the car will fall apart. Experts, whose opinion was published on the resource AUtoBlog, believe that this will happen within a year.

Inorganic components, including aluminum chassis, battery, and windshield, are much more resistant to external factors. But these components may well be destroyed as a result of collisions with various objects such as small meteorites or pieces of comets.

Interestingly, long before launch, SpaceX offered NASA and the United States Air Force to use the first launch of a heavy Falcon Heavy rocket for free launch of scientific or military equipment into orbit. The idea to send an electric car came to mind the company's management only after both organizations refused to cooperate.

As for NASA, the former deputy administrator of the agency, Lori Garver, said that the organization’s management considered Falcon Heavy to be a competitor to its super-heavy SLS rocket and decided to refuse to work together. In addition, representatives of the agency more than once skeptical about the rocket.

Perhaps the refusal was also given for the reason that neither NASA nor the military wanted to risk equipment. Mask himself was not too sure about the success of the launch, and those who were not involved in the project were even less afraid of failure.

It is worth noting that SpaceX is the first organization in 30 years that was able to develop and successfully launch super-heavy media. At the same time, the cost of putting cargo into orbit (up to 63.8 tons) is about $ 90 million.