First car in space today!

[Sunshine]

[F15Rules]

On 06/02/2018 at 21:31, Paul M said:

So that's what they did with Jeremy Clarkson!

If only...

I'd happily contribute to a crowd funding appeal for that particular project!

Dave

[mikeDnight]

I thought scientists were supposed to be intelligent, but how can anyone respect such a bird brain venture? And now look, they've even missed the target!

[Paul M]

1 hour ago, Sunshine said:

I saw that on the site I linked to earlier, but unfortunately the orbital elements that SkySafari is using seem to be for a LEO object. The elements picked up by Stellarium seem to be behaving weirdly too! Other than the above graphic, I can't find any live tracking data that makes sense. Even this from here: http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=43205#TOP is showing a geocentric orbit!

  

[Stu]

2 hours ago, Sunshine said:

This one has been acknowledged to be incorrect, it will, I believe, go beyond Mars' orbit but not as far as the asteroid belt.

[Sunshine]

Let’s not be harsh on them, Musk clearly stated they had no intention of tracking or accurately putting this car into any particular orbit, launching this car was just for the heck of doing it, they know this is not the objective by far and serves no valuable purpose other than bragging rights.

Im sure they’re dealing with a hailstorm of data to work through and a million questions from potential customers, the floating Tesla will not be sucking up much Human Resources I can assure. It’s in space where they wanted it and that’s about it for that, I’m pretty sure the floating Tesla aside from the occasional blurb at the water cooler at SpaceX is way down on the to do list.

[Paul M]

That's true. I know they don't have NASA's resources for tracking. I'm more curious why the orbital elements aren't out there on the internet via the various agencies like NORAD who track all launches and calculate orbital parameters.

If this thing is on a Heliocentric orbit it will only need a few positional fixes to calculate its full orbit, notwithstanding future 3rd body interactions. The ephemerides Stellarium has are only hours old so calculated after the supposed 3rd burn/transfer orbit maneuver.

Very  peculiar, me thinks!

Just remembered I've got Satellite Safari on my phone and using the same ephemerides from the 7th gives this orbit. Very low at perigee. I'm thinking this is in reach of amateur scopes but it'll be zipping along at some angular rate!

[SilverAstro]

Some info about the doubts / revisions to its orbit (edit : revisions to the Asteroid Scenario)    Here  (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/tesla-elon-musk-mars-spacex-asteroid-belt/552719/) a good read.

and A Tweet Here  (https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/961394843648954368) with figures, not sure if/where original sources are yet, still looking.

[SilverAstro]

from the above ref

Rivkin says. “If this were a real Mars mission, this would be a disastrously wrong orbit and might not be recoverable. But since this may have been ‘put it up to full throttle and let’s see what this baby can do,’ it’s not a problem.”  !!!

 

[Sunshine]

15 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

 

Some info about the doubts / revisions to its orbit   Here  (https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/tesla-elon-musk-mars-spacex-asteroid-belt/552719/) a good read.

and A Tweet Here  (https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/961394843648954368) with figures, not sure if/where original sources are yet, still looking.

Edited 7 minutes ago by SilverAstro

 

Very handy post, Thank you!!

[Paul M]

The tweeting thread is useful. So independent observations have been made. Just need someone who knows what they are doing to plug them into SkySafari

Now where have my Jean Meeus books gone...? 

[SilverAstro]

1 minute ago, Paul M said:

Now where have my Jean Meeus books gone...? 

Me too, and can you find a Basic interpreter and/or  your ZX81, hehee been there

[SilverAstro]

With a new revised aphelion of 1.7AU instead of 2.6AU it is well short of the asteroids !

more like "Lost in Space" , , , hands up who remembers , oh dont ! they all cry

The upside is, less chance of hitting one and deflecting it this way , chortle !

[Stub Mandrel]

 

Plug 143205 into the 'target body' here and you will get lots of figures that mean nothing to me!

https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi

 

 

[Sunshine]

11 minutes ago, Paul M said:

The tweeting thread is useful. So independent observations have been made. Just need someone who knows what they are doing to plug them into SkySafari

Now where have my Jean Meeus books gone...? 

It would be so cool to have its orbit plugged into apps like Pocket universe or SkySafari, would be cool to watch it progress over the years.

 Just think about that for a second everyone,  out in the field under a dark sky using your computer or iPad with SkySafari and seeing that dot on the screen among the stars, but labelled Tesla Roadster lol how surreal will that be, i think its the neatest thing since sliced bread lol.

[SilverAstro]

So mamas little spaceman didnt really want to leave home
 

[Paul M]

Just playing with the simulator linked in the tweets thread from above.

http://orbitsimulator.com/gravitySimulatorCloud/simulations/1518035538968_teslaConstellations.html

Just exactly what I was looking for!!

[Paul M]

33 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Plug 143205 into the 'target body' here and you will get lots of figures that mean nothing to me!

https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi

 

 

Great find! Unfortunately it doesn't look like SkySafari allows manual input of elements. Neither does Stellarium but I might be able to point that to a downloaded file from your linked site  

[Paul M]

And now we make progress.

Using the jpl/nasa site above and some poking around it now seems that Tesla Roadster is the designation prior to leaving earth orbit, when it became an asteroid not a satellite!!

So plugging in "2000 AV72" into Stellarium and SkySafari returns a heliocentric body having the properties given by jpl/nasa. It still doesn't display correctly in skysafari on my phone but at least it's heliocentric! Still playing with Stellarium, which has more limited use in displaying solar system dynamics from above the ecliptic....I think.

So Starman is an asteroid now

And I've wasted a day of my life trying to achieve something!

 

 

[SilverAstro]

Ah ! I see you have found the Horizons site ! I was preparing to post some destructions for it !

The Object designator you want is  -143205

Ill post my note anyway but it is a little redundant now, but may be useful for some ?

:---

Go to NASA JPL website https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov
Click on 'Horizons'
Click on 'Web Interface
Click on 'Target body "Change" '

Enter either "SpaceX Roadster"  or "-143205"  

    (the current object designator is -143205 but it also has it catalogued as the roadster)

and finally click on 'Generate Ephemeris'

That will generate chapter and verse on what it is, all its current parameters and where it is in the sky for a geocentric (default ) observer.

otherwise, on the previous screen where you changed Target Body change also 'Observer Location' and go to Non-USA cities or enter Long/Lat

Here is a clip/quote from its description :---

"Also includes a Hot Wheels toy model Roadster on the car's dash with a
 mini-Starman inside. A data storage device placed inside the car contains
 a copy of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" novels. A plaque on the attachment
 fitting between the Falcon Heavy upper stage and the Tesla is etched with
 the names of more than 6,000 SpaceX employees.

 After orbiting the Earth for 6 hours, a third-stage burn-to-depletion
 was completed at approximately 02:30 UTC Feb 7, placing the dummy payload
 in a heliocentric orbit having a perihelion of 0.99 au and aphelion
 ~1.7 au."

[SilverAstro]

Ha ! I have underestimated EM, he is a man of culture it would seem, I didnt know till now that he had included ' Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" novels '.  Gosh, it must be getting on 50y since I last read the trilogy !!

[Paul M]

1 hour ago, SilverAstro said:

Ah ! I see you have found the Horizons site ! I was preparing to post some destructions for it !

The Object designator you want is  -143205

Ill post my note anyway but it is a little redundant now, but may be useful for some ?

:---

Go to NASA JPL website https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov
Click on 'Horizons'
Click on 'Web Interface
Click on 'Target body "Change" '

Enter either "SpaceX Roadster"  or "-143205"  

    (the current object designator is -143205 but it also has it catalogued as the roadster)hi

and finally click on 'Generate Ephemeris'

That will generate chapter and verse on what it is, all its current parameters and where it is in the sky for a geocentric (default ) observer.

otherwise, on the previous screen where you changed Target Body change also 'Observer Location' and go to Non-USA cities or enter Long/Lat

Here is a clip/quote from its description :---

"Also includes a Hot Wheels toy model Roadster on the car's dash with a
 mini-Starman inside. A data storage device placed inside the car contains
 a copy of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" novels. A plaque on the attachment
 fitting between the Falcon Heavy upper stage and the Tesla is etched with
 the names of more than 6,000 SpaceX employees.

 After orbiting the Earth for 6 hours, a third-stage burn-to-depletion
 was completed at approximately 02:30 UTC Feb 7, placing the dummy payload
 in a heliocentric orbit having a perihelion of 0.99 au and aphelion
 ~1.7 au."

Bizarrely, that returns the geocentric orbit I was struggling with earlier. 

143205 and 2018-017A return different objects in sky safari. 

I'm still holding out for 2000 AV72, that agrees with the orbital modeler posted earlier on. Why such an old designation crops up I'm not sure. 

[SilverAstro]

1 hour ago, Paul M said:

143205 and 2018-017A return different objects in sky safari. 

Hmmm, that could be something to do with the minor planet (aka asteroid ?)

143205     2002 XQ92     December 5, 2002     Kitt Peak     M. W. Buie ; from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_planets:_143001–144000

!!!!

it seems that in  Horizons  the   " - " in  :

2 hours ago, SilverAstro said:

Enter either "SpaceX Roadster"  or "-143205"  

    (the current object designator is -143205 but it also has it catalogued as the roadster)

is crucial to identify the roadster ! betwixt 143205 and -143205  

seems a bit odd and prone to error/confusion, dunno what is going on there.

 

 

[Sunshine]

Glad I began this thread a couple days ago, had a great time reading through everyone’s input, learned a lot actually, great group you all are!

[Paul M]

5 hours ago, SilverAstro said:

Hmmm, that could be something to do with the minor planet (aka asteroid ?)

143205     2002 XQ92     December 5, 2002     Kitt Peak     M. W. Buie ; from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_planets:_143001–144000

!!!!

it seems that in  Horizons  the   " - " in  :

is crucial to identify the roadster ! betwixt 143205 and -143205  

seems a bit odd and prone to error/confusion, dunno what is going on there.

 

 

i

My head hurts! I promised myself that I'd drop this bone today.....!

And I didn't even know who Elon Musk was until a few weeks ago.