Elon Musk will launch a red Tesla Roadster into space on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket on Tuesday, the Tesla CEO has revealed.
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But for this inaugural flight, the rocket will carry up Musk’s cherry-red Tesla Roadster. The payload will be jettisoned into deep space. Musk said that three cameras would be mounted on the Roadster, which should provide “epic views” of the auto floating toward Mars, if all goes to plan.
“Normally, when a new rocket is tested, they put something really boring on like a block of concrete or a chunk of steel or something”, Musk said, explaining that SpaceX wanted to use a dead weight that might get the public more excited. To the tunes of David Bowie’s Life on Mars, we see the Falcon Heavy taking off from the launch pad, exiting the atmosphere and then shooting off to Mars, carrying its unlikely cargo and the Starman as the driver.
Inside the top of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket is Elon Musk’s midnight cherry red Tesla Roadster electric auto.
SpaceX this week is preparing to launch Falcon Heavy, the biggest rocket in the company’s history, for the first time. If everything goes well, the rocket will be about 400 million kilometers (about 250 million miles) away from our planet, and will remain in that orbit for up to a billion years. This may be according to many experts because of the outstanding characteristic of 27 engines on the Falcon Heavy, it would only take a single malfunction to bring down the anticipated spacecraft. Musk shared a heartfelt farewell to his first Tesla in a simulation video of Tuesday’s Falcon Heavy launch.
Like the boosters before it, the first stage rocket undergoes a flip maneuver.
Musk has opted for other less-than-traditional rocket payloads in the past. The rocket is created to carry humans into space-to the moon and one day even to Mars. Because its boosters land back on earth and are re-usable, the cost to launch can be $90 million, considerably less than other rockets on the market today.
However, Musk has also said on many occasions that the very first launch for Falcon Heavy might also end in an explosive pattern of failure but it surely is a stepping stone towards the future of space exploration and commercialisation of space missions. Now the rocket, comprised of three Falcon 9 vessels strapped together, may be ready for prime time. Musk described it as an “Earth-Mars cycler”, but it’s a little tricky to imagine just what this orbit will look like without some visuals.
The public can watch a livestream of the launch event on SpaceX’s website here.
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Launch time is set for 1:30 p.m.at Cape Canaveral, from Launch Pad 39A.
