Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the world’s biggest and heaviest rocket, the Falcon Heavy, in space to Mars on Tuesday. Along with the rocket went Tesla’s Roadster car with a dummy driver and Musk promises it will send epic images from the outer space.
The Roadster is fitted with three cameras that live stream its journey towards Mars. The live stream will continue until the car’s battery dies, which according to Musk will die after 12 hours of launch. Up till now, the dummy driver named ‘Starman’ wearing SpaceX’s space suit has shown mesmerizing views of the space and of Earth.
View from SpaceX Launch Control. Apparently, there is a car in orbit around Earth. pic.twitter.com/QljN2VnL1O
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2018
“There’s going to be a bunch of sensors on the upper stage [of the rocket], so we’ll get a lot of data back, but I think the most fun stuff is going to be the three cameras that are mounted on the Roadster. They should really provide some epic views if they work and everything goes well,” said Musk.
World’s biggest rocket soars toward Mars after perfect launch
In a press conference after the launch, Musk said, “It looks so ridiculous and impossible. You can tell it’s real because it looks so fake, honestly.”
According to Business Insider, the car is also equipped with a model-sized version of the car and a model-sized version of Starman. On the Roadster’s circuit board is a special note written that reads, “Made on earth by humans”. Also, the payload’s attach fitting also has the memes of over 600 SpaceX employees imprinted on it.
Printed on the circuit board of a car in deep space
A post shared by Elon Musk (@elonmusk) on
Musk claimed that after entering mars’ orbit, the car will fly a few hundred million or billion years with David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ playing for as long as it can. It is approximated that the cherry red Tesla car will take around six months to go through a journey of 200-million-mile into Mars’ orbit.