I cannot find out how far from earth Starman of the Falcon Heavy is right now, or at any time for that matter. How would I find the distance?
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asked Feb 7, 2018 at 8:54
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3$\begingroup$ I do not know if this will help but the Roadster has been given a couple of designations. NORAD ID: 43205. Int'l Code: 2018-017A. $\endgroup$– MichaelKFeb 7, 2018 at 9:08
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$\begingroup$ I don't want to ask a separate question because I think OP and I want the same thing. Is there some kind of graphic, showing the orbits of things around the sun, but has a marker on where Spaceman is in relation to those things? I know Elon Musk tweeted something like that showing the new trajectory, but I haven't been able to find a "live" version of that. I think that's what OP asks for? $\endgroup$– coblrFeb 7, 2018 at 20:45
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$\begingroup$ @coblr That is exactly what I wanted! $\endgroup$– Holger LudvigsenFeb 8, 2018 at 10:13
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3 Answers
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I've created a website to tell this information. It isn't perfect, but it is mostly accurate, at least for now. http://www.whereisroadster.com/ As of editing this post,
The current location is 1,297,260 miles (2,087,737 km, 0.014 AU) from Earth, moving away from Earth at a speed of 6,862 miles/hour (11,043 km/hour, 3.07 km/s).
The information comes from JPL/Horizons, which used SpaceX's ephemeris as well as visual observations to model it's path for some time.
answered Feb 8, 2018 at 11:08
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1$\begingroup$ What is the source of your numbers? $\endgroup$ Feb 8, 2018 at 12:44
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$\begingroup$ I'm using a model I created based on the TLEs and the C3 Elon tweeted, and I'm going to update it to use the Ephemeris that SpaceX provided JPL as soon as I can. It should be accurate enough for the moment, but I'm hoping to have increasingly accurate numbers, at least until the fact that we can't track it causes an issue. $\endgroup$– PearsonArtPhoto ♦Feb 8, 2018 at 13:17
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$\begingroup$ But where does it state the altitude or distance from earth? @matthew-wang $\endgroup$ Feb 7, 2018 at 15:34
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$\begingroup$ Perigee: 187.7 km Apogee: 6,957.9 km, it shows apa and pea $\endgroup$ Feb 7, 2018 at 16:10
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1$\begingroup$ But I thought it was supposed to be heading for Mars / past Mars orbit. Those numbers say it's not going very far at all, as per Steve's "question" below. $\endgroup$– Peter K.Feb 7, 2018 at 18:54
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Those orbital elements refer to the parking orbit prior to the burn that took it out of earth orbit. The parking orbit was approximately 180 x 6951 km, and it completed two orbits before executing the burn at about 0230 UTC on 7 Feb 2018 just before the second perigee (where it was most energy-efficient to do so). We observed this visually in San Diego during a pass just after local sunset.
NORAD does not maintain elements for objects not in earth orbit but NASA JPL does. You can locate Starman/Tesla/FH through their Horizons online system: horizons.jpl.nasa.gov. It's designed for solar system objects.
