On February 6, 2018, the giant rocket Falcon Heavy, produced by SpaceX, was launched to pass through Mars orbit together with a Tesla Roadster. Falcon Heavy, which we bid farewell with David Bowie’s song Starman, is currently in orbit of Mars, according to Elon Musk’s post the other day.
“My vehicle is currently in Mars orbit. This tweet of Musk, who gave information about the current situation with the statements ”, drew a reaction from a professor. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at Harvard, explained that Elon Musk’s vehicle is not actually orbiting Mars. Let’s say right now, this explanation was actually a bit unnecessary.
Not Mars bro, orbiting the Sun!
Jonathan, under Elon Musk’s post, said, “Actually, no. The vehicle orbits the Sun and occasionally passes Mars orbit. They are not the same thing. ” he reacted. He even shared a chart showing the orbits of Mars, Sun and Falcon Heavy on top of this reaction. The graph showed Falcon Heavy orbiting the Sun in its own orbit, coinciding with the orbit of Mars at some points.
- Current position of Mars, Earth and Falcon Heavy
Of course, let’s say that all these calculations are not done with live data, because it cannot be done. Because Falcon Heavy stopped sending data to Earth shortly after takeoff. Therefore, the trajectory of the rocket was determined purely by mathematical calculations. McDowell noted that Kepler’s laws allow us to adapt the orbital information to the present day.
Mathematical calculations and McDowell’s exit to Musk aside, it was already known that Falcon Heavy was not orbiting Mars. Falcon Heavy was launched into heliocentric orbit, to go around the Sun. Both Elon Musk and anyone who knew the details of the mission and saw Musk’s tweet knew this. Many found McDowell’s exit unnecessary.
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