Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster passes Mars on galactic voyage

Tesla founder Elon Musk’s old Tesla Roadster and its dummy ‘Starman’ astronaut have passed Mars on their orbit of the sun.

The roadster, which was sent into space on February 6 this year as a test of Musk’s latest SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, will reach its furthest point from the sun on November 8, before heading back towards the centre of the solar system. The Roadster is set to go round the sun once every 557 days, on a slightly offset orbit.

According to Musk and SpaceX, the Roadster was doing around 44,500mph when it passed Mars.

Musk, the chief executive of the tech firm and space transportation company, said the goal was to carry “the silliest thing we can imagine”, giving his own car to the cause. The electric sports car was permanently mounted to the top of the rocket in an inclined position, and a full-sized human mannequin in a spacesuit was placed in the driver’s seat. The ‘astronaut’ takes its name from the David Bowie song.

The SpaceX Twitter account posted an update on the car’s position, saying: “Next stop, the restaurant at the end of the universe.” That’s a reference to the Douglas Adams novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a copy of which is in the car’s glovebox. In further tribute to the comedy sci-fi series, there’s also a sign on the dashboard saying ‘Don’t Panic!’ and a towel.

The Roadster is set to cross the Earth’s orbit in August 2019 and will come close to our planet in 2091, passing within a few hundred thousand kilometres. There’s only a six per cent chance it will hit the planet in the next million years, though, so there’s no need to watch your head for falling Teslas.

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