On 6 February 2018, Elon Musk did something that sounded like a joke but was entirely real.
During the first demonstration flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, instead of launching a conventional dummy payload, Musk placed his own midnight-cherry Tesla Roadster on top of the rocket.
Behind the wheel sat a mannequin wearing a spacesuit. Its name was Starman.
More than eight years later, the car is still travelling through space.
It is not parked in orbit around Earth. It is not orbiting Mars. And despite the popular images of the car apparently heading towards the Red Planet, Mars was never its actual destination.
The Tesla is now an artificial object in heliocentric orbit — orbiting the Sun.
And as of August 2026, it is continuing its enormous looping journey through the inner Solar System.
Where Is the Tesla Roadster Right Now?
The latest available orbital tracking data puts the Roadster roughly 102 million kilometres from Earth and about 244 million kilometres from the Sun.
That places it approximately 0.68 astronomical units from Earth and 1.63 AU from the Sun.
The exact numbers continually change because the Roadster is moving around the Sun at considerable speed.
The object is tracked using orbital calculations based on NASA/JPL Horizons data. TheSkyLive's live tracker specifically states that its position calculations use high-precision JPL Horizons ephemerides.
There is an important distinction here. When astronomers say the Roadster is currently in the constellation Pisces, they are describing where it appears against the background stars when viewed from Earth.
That does not mean the car is physically near the constellation or travelling towards it.
Its actual physical location is determined by its three-dimensional position within the Solar System.
So Which Way Is It Going?
This is where the Roadster's journey becomes particularly interesting.
The car follows a highly elongated orbit around the Sun. Its path takes it from inside Earth's orbit to beyond Mars' orbit before bringing it back towards the inner Solar System.
Its orbital period is roughly 1.5 years, or about 557 days. The Roadster's orbit reaches approximately 1.66–1.67 AU from the Sun at its furthest point.
In 2026, the car has been around its distant part of the orbit and is now on the return portion of the trajectory.
In other words:
It isn't currently heading towards Mars. It is travelling along its solar orbit, moving back towards the inner Solar System before eventually heading out again.
The distinction matters because the Roadster's path repeatedly crosses the orbital region occupied by Mars without actually being captured by Mars.
The Tesla Doesn't Orbit Mars
This is probably the biggest misconception surrounding Starman.
The Roadster was launched onto a trajectory designed to send it beyond Earth's orbit and across the region occupied by Mars.
But it was never inserted into Mars orbit.
NASA documentation records that the Falcon Heavy mission did not include a Mars flyby, orbiter or lander. The trajectory was designed as an escape trajectory from Earth rather than a mission to deliver the Roadster to Mars.
The car therefore became a small artificial satellite of the Sun. That distinction transforms the story. Instead of being a discarded spacecraft circling a planet, Starman is effectively a tiny artificial planet-like object following its own orbit around our star.
The Orbit of Starman
The Roadster's orbit is highly elliptical. At its closest point to the Sun, known as perihelion, it comes to roughly the distance of Earth's orbit.
At its furthest point, or aphelion, it travels to approximately 1.66 AU.
That is considerably farther from the Sun than Earth and takes it beyond Mars' average orbital distance of about 1.52 AU.
The result is an orbit that repeatedly crosses the region between Earth and Mars.
A simplified version looks like this:
Sun → Earth → Mars → Roadster's outer orbital limit
Then the Roadster swings back towards the Sun and begins the journey outward again. It is an enormous celestial loop.
The Roadster Has Already Passed Mars
The Tesla reached beyond Mars' orbital distance less than a year after launch.
In November 2018, the Roadster crossed beyond the orbit of Mars, confirming that the Falcon Heavy demonstration had achieved the ambitious trajectory intended for the test.
But crossing Mars' orbital distance is very different from flying past Mars itself. The geometry of the two orbits meant that the Roadster did not intercept the planet.
The first significant close approach eventually occurred in October 2020.
The car passed Mars at a distance of roughly 8 million kilometres, or about 20 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
Mars' gravity was not strong enough at that distance to fundamentally capture the Roadster. The car continued on its solar orbit.
When Will It Meet Mars Again?
The next notable Mars encounter is expected in 2035.
Current orbital predictions indicate that the Roadster will pass relatively close to Mars again during that year. Some earlier calculations put the nominal encounter distance at only a few million kilometres, although the precise future distance carries uncertainty because the Roadster is an uncontrolled object and its trajectory has to be propagated over many years.
That means the 2035 encounter will be another fascinating moment. But it still doesn't mean Starman will enter Mars orbit.
A planetary flyby requires extremely precise geometry. For an object simply to cross a planet's orbital path is not enough. The planet and the spacecraft have to arrive at the same place at the same time.
And Then Comes Earth
The Roadster's journey eventually brings it back towards Earth's neighbourhood. One of the most interesting predicted encounters occurs in 2047.
Current long-term predictions indicate that the Roadster could pass within several million kilometres of Earth during that encounter. Some published orbital simulations put the nominal closest approach at roughly 5 million kilometres.
That sounds enormous — and it is.
Five million kilometres is more than ten times the average distance between Earth and the Moon. But on an astronomical scale, it is relatively close.
And because the Roadster would be moving rapidly, the encounter would be brief. It wouldn't suddenly appear as a giant red car in the night sky.
In fact, even today the Roadster is extraordinarily difficult to observe.
Could We See It From Earth?
Technically, yes.
Practically, not with ordinary equipment.
The Roadster is extremely faint. Recent tracking data put its apparent brightness at approximately magnitude 26.5, far beyond the capability of the naked eye and vastly fainter than objects visible through ordinary amateur telescopes.
Astronomers therefore need powerful instruments and accurate positional data to detect it.
The irony is remarkable.
Humanity can track an automobile travelling hundreds of millions of kilometres away, but nobody can simply look up into the night sky and see Starman driving through the darkness.
What Is Starman Doing Now?
Nothing. The Roadster is no longer an operational spacecraft. It has no steering system. No propulsion. No communications system capable of sending information back to Earth. No navigation system.
The cameras that produced the spectacular launch photographs were powered by batteries that were never designed to operate indefinitely.
The Roadster and its upper-stage hardware were eventually passivated.
Since then, the car has simply been following the laws of orbital mechanics. It is essentially a dead piece of space junk moving through interplanetary space.
Its journey is now fully determined by gravity.
A Car Travelling at Astronomical Speed
Calling it a "car" makes the Roadster sound slow. It isn't.
Its heliocentric orbital velocity changes throughout its orbit, accelerating as it falls towards the Sun and slowing as it climbs towards the outer part of its trajectory.
Like any object in an elliptical orbit, it exchanges kinetic and gravitational potential energy continuously.
Near the Sun, it moves faster. Farther away, it moves more slowly. Then gravity pulls it back inward. The process repeats.
The Roadster is therefore effectively locked into a perpetual gravitational loop.
Why Was It Sent Into Space?
The Tesla was never intended to be a scientific mission, it could be better described as an egotistical mission. If anything, it was a demonstration payload.
Falcon Heavy was making its first flight, and SpaceX needed something to launch. Using an expensive operational satellite would have been unnecessarily risky for a debut flight.
Musk instead chose something memorable. His personal Tesla Roadster.
The decision turned a conventional rocket demonstration into one of the most recognisable spaceflight events of the modern era. The launch also demonstrated that Falcon Heavy could send a payload onto an escape trajectory from Earth.
That was the important engineering objective. The Tesla was merely a passenger.
From Marketing Stunt to Artificial Celestial Object
At launch, the Roadster was a publicity sensation. Eight years later, it has become something considerably more interesting to astronomers.
It is now a piece of human-made material travelling independently around the Sun. It has effectively joined the growing population of artificial objects moving through interplanetary space.
It is not a form of spacecraft in the traditional sense anymore. It is a piece of human technology on a long-term celestial trajectory.
And because its orbit has been observed and refined, astronomers can continue predicting where it should be.
The Journey Will Continue for a Very Long Time
The Roadster isn't going to stop anytime soon. There is no obvious mechanism that will suddenly bring it back to Earth.
It will continue orbiting the Sun unless a gravitational encounter significantly alters its trajectory or it eventually suffers some other major perturbation.
Over very long timescales, however, its orbit becomes increasingly difficult to predict precisely.
Tiny gravitational influences accumulate. Planetary encounters can alter trajectories. Non-gravitational effects, including the pressure of sunlight, can also become relevant when projecting an object's position far into the future.
Consequently, predictions decades or centuries into the future should not be treated as exact timetables.
The farther forward we look, the greater the uncertainty becomes.
The 2047 Encounter Is Particularly Interesting
The projected Earth encounter in 2047 deserves attention because it will provide another opportunity to study the Roadster's trajectory.
If the vehicle remains intact and its orbit remains close to current predictions, astronomers should be able to observe it as it approaches Earth's neighbourhood.
But "close approach" shouldn't be confused with "danger". The predicted distance is millions of kilometres. There is no current basis for describing the 2047 encounter as an imminent threat to Earth.
The Roadster is simply passing through the same broad region of the Solar System.
Could the Roadster Ever Hit Earth?
Over extremely long timescales, the question becomes more complicated.
Because its orbit crosses Earth's orbital region, there are theoretically opportunities for future gravitational encounters.
Long-term simulations have examined possible collisions with Earth and Venus over millions of years. Some published simulations have produced non-zero probabilities, but those numbers are highly sensitive to the assumed trajectory and become increasingly uncertain over long periods.
That should not be interpreted as "Tesla will eventually crash into Earth".
It means that orbital mechanics cannot guarantee that a body crossing Earth's orbital region will remain permanently isolated from Earth.
For now, the predicted encounters are simply distant flybys.
What Will Happen to the Tesla Itself?
The Roadster was designed for Earth's atmosphere and road conditions.
Space is an entirely different environment. There is no atmosphere to protect it from ultraviolet radiation. There are energetic particles. Extreme temperature variations. Micrometeoroids. Vacuum. And continual exposure to the space environment.
Over decades and centuries, the vehicle will gradually deteriorate. Its tyres, plastics, paint, upholstery and other materials are unlikely to remain pristine indefinitely.
The famous cherry-red Tesla that appeared in SpaceX's launch livestream will gradually become something very different. But exactly how long recognisable components will survive is difficult to predict.
Starman's Long Journey
There is something strangely poetic about the Roadster's trajectory.
It began as an ordinary production car. It was driven on Earth. It carried its owner around Los Angeles. Then, one day, it was strapped to the most powerful rocket SpaceX had ever flown and sent beyond Earth's gravitational domain. Now it circles the Sun.
The car has no driver. No destination. No steering wheel that anyone can operate. It simply follows an orbit established during a few minutes of rocket-engine burns in February 2018.
Where Is It Heading?
The simplest answer is: Around the Sun.
More specifically, it is travelling along an elliptical orbit that repeatedly takes it from the vicinity of Earth's orbit to beyond Mars' orbital distance and back again.
In 2026, the Roadster is roughly 244 million kilometres from the Sun and around 102 million kilometres from Earth, according to current tracking data. It is currently in the part of its orbit following its distant excursion and is continuing around the Sun.
Its next major planetary milestone is expected to be another Mars encounter in 2035. Then, potentially, comes a relatively close Earth encounter in 2047.
After that, the celestial journey continues.
Eight Years After Launch, Starman Is Still Out There
The most extraordinary thing about the Tesla Roadster may not be that Elon Musk launched it into space.
It is that the stunt became permanent.
The rocket launch lasted minutes. The livestream lasted hours. The publicity lasted days. But the Roadster's journey is measured in decades, centuries and potentially millions of years.
Right now, somewhere in the darkness between Earth and the outer reaches of Mars' orbit, a cherry-red Tesla is silently circling the Sun. There is no engine running. No radio playing. No driver.
Just Starman, sitting behind the wheel of a car that has become one of the strangest artificial objects ever placed into interplanetary space.
And its journey is far from over.
Tesla Roadster: Current Status
Feature| Current status
Launch| 6 February 2018
Rocket| SpaceX Falcon Heavy
Current orbit| Around the Sun
Approx. Sun distance, August 2026| ~244 million km / ~1.63 AU
Approx. Earth distance| ~102 million km / ~0.68 AU
Orbital period| ~1.5 years / ~557 days
Furthest solar distance| ~1.66–1.67 AU
Mars encounter| October 2020
Next notable Mars encounter| ~2035
Possible close Earth encounter| ~2047
Current operational status| Inert
Tracking| JPL Horizons-based orbital calculations
The Tesla Roadster isn't heading for a destination in the conventional sense. It is heading along an orbit — one that will carry Elon Musk's improbable space car around the Sun again and again long after everyone who watched its launch has forgotten the original livestream.
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