There’s Another SpaceX Tesla Model 3 Floating in Space, But Where Is It?

Many people sometimes look at the starry sky at night and wonder what it would be like to float around in this endless emptiness. More than 600 people have flown into space, but one of the most striking things floating around in our solar system is Elon Musk’s Tesla Model 3 and the vehicle’s driver: Starman.

It’s been 5 years since the controversial Twitter owner’s car flew into space as part of Falcon Heavy’s first test launch. Why the Tesla? Well, SpaceX needed a fake payload for the test, and Musk wanted “the craziest thing imaginable.” Nice and crazy to put a car worth about $130,000 into space. But then of course the question is: where is the car now?

How can we track the Tesla Model 3 in space?

Thanks to the whereisroadster.com website, you can now track the location of Elon Musk’s Tesla at any time of the day. The site has been around since 2018 and was founded by Ben Pearson out of excitement for the launch of the Starman and his car. The question of where Starman actually was in space kept growing.

The website uses data from the JPL Horizons system California Institute of Technology to calculate the location of the Tesla Model 3. The script that performs the calculations compares known data from Starman’s course with data from that system. According to Pearson, the data is becoming increasingly inaccurate because Starman is no longer visible and the Horizons system cannot pick up any changes.

What do we now know about the Model 3?

Although we no longer know anything specific about the Tesla and its driver, the website can still provide us with all sorts of interesting data. For example, at the time of writing, the electric car can be seen approaching Earth at a speed of just over 14,000 kilometers per hour. Don’t worry, the chances of Musk’s car coming to the family home for coffee after his vacation in space are very slim.

The possibility has been studied by a team of scientists who say there is only a 6 percent chance the Tesla Model 3 will hit Earth within a million years. Drink your coffee yourself.

Now that the shock of a crash has hopefully worn off a bit, you can also look at other interesting data. For example, that the Tesla has traveled as much distance in space as if you had driven all the roads on earth 63.4 times. Or this: When Falcon Heavy took off, Starman listened space oddity (David Bowie).

If the battery was still working, the doll would have heard the song about 498,000 times at the moment. (Is there life on Mars? played in the doll’s other ear, which now stands about 671,000 times).

What does the future of Starman and his Tesla look like?

Unfortunately, we can no longer see exactly where the Tesla Model 3 is located. However, the possibility of taking the car from space and putting it in a museum in about thirty years has been explored.

Who knows, maybe we’ll see this explorer sometime in the future. Although, of course, some of it must remain.