Launched in 2018 as a rocket test dummy payload: a red Tesla with a spacesuited mannequin. It now orbits the Sun beyond Mars’s orbit. The arrow marks its live position.
SpaceX · Original image and terms. Web-sized reproduction.
Point at the car.
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How to see it tonight
The Roadster cannot be seen with any telescope a backyard observer owns. It is a car-sized object, far too small and dark, drifting somewhere between Earth’s orbit and Mars’s.
SkyLumi points at its live computed position instead, tracked from real orbital data the way spacecraft and asteroids are tracked. The direction simply changes as the object moves along its orbit.
The photograph above shows the actual car, but taken on Earth before launch, not in space. No image of it orbiting the Sun exists past the first few hours, before its onboard camera batteries died.
By October 2020, the Roadster had passed within about five million miles of Mars itself, per NASA’s history office. It never actually landed anywhere.
SkyLumi adds a live count of the distance travelled since 2018, next to the arrow showing where to look.
What to expect: eyes, binoculars, telescope, photograph
What you actually see changes completely with equipment. Here is each view, sourced.
| View | What you can expect |
|---|---|
| Naked eye | Nothing. The Roadster launched on the Falcon Heavy’s first flight, February 6, 2018. It reached “a heliocentric orbit with its farthest point past the orbit of Mars,” per NASA’s history office. It is far too small and distant to see. |
| Binoculars | Also nothing. The car and its mannequin driver, Starman, headed “for space beyond the orbit of Mars,” with no return. Source: NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. |
| Telescope | Not visible in any consumer telescope; the object is roughly car-sized and reflects almost no light at this distance. This is a size-and-brightness estimate. No NASA source states a visual magnitude for the Roadster. |
| Photograph | The image above is a real photograph of the Roadster, but taken on Earth, credited via Wikimedia Commons. It is not an image of it in orbit. Onboard camera views stopped four hours after launch, per NASA. |
What SkyLumi does
Aim the phone at the sky, and SkyLumi marks the Roadster’s live computed direction. It tracks as you move, even though nothing is visible there by eye.
The story panel traces its looping orbit between Earth’s and Mars’s. A counter runs the distance it has travelled since the 2018 launch.
Night Vision keeps your eyes dark-adapted for the rest of the sky nearby. No account, no ads. The core sky works offline; the live position needs a connection.
A few things to know.
Can I see the Tesla Roadster in space?
No. It is far too small and dark for any telescope to detect at its distance. SkyLumi shows where it is computed to be, not a visible object.
What is Starman?
A mannequin in a spacesuit, seated in the driver’s seat, launched as part of the same test payload in 2018. It has never been photographed since the onboard cameras stopped, hours after launch.
What was it launched for?
It was the dummy payload for the first test flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. A block of concrete was the plan before it.
Where does its orbit go?
It loops around the Sun on a path that reaches past Mars’s orbit and back toward Earth’s. It repeats roughly every year and a half.
More in the Sky Library
Sources and image credit
- NASA History: 5 Years Ago, First Flight of the Falcon Heavy Rocket
- NASA APOD: Roadster, Starman, Planet Earth
Image attribution and original terms are linked beneath the image. Use of imagery does not imply endorsement of SkyLumi.