Live deep-space tracker · Tesla Roadster
Where is Starman right now?
ORBIKA tracks the real Tesla Roadster in deep space with NASA/JPL data. Distance, speed, next close pass. Live, to the kilometre.
NO ACCOUNT · NO WALLET · NO API KEYS · PUBLIC SCIENCE DATA ONLY
Mission patch
ORBIKA · DEEP-SPACE NAV
- Speed (Sun)
- —
- Light-time
- —
- Launched
- 6 Feb 2018
- Orbit
- 0.99 – 1.67 AU
- Payload mass
- ~1,250 kg
- Data source
- NASA/JPL
Falcon Heavy, pad 39A
Perihelion to aphelion
Roadster with batteries
Horizons, object -143205
FDF-02 · Flight data
Live tracking file
REV. LIVE —
ORBIKA · navigator
Plotting his course. Coordinates logged.
—
Awaiting ephemeris.
—
Distances tick live, extrapolated from JPL range-rate; re-synced with JPL every 10 minutes. Speeds are the interpolated JPL state at the last sync.
Source: NASA/JPL Horizons, object -143205 · awaiting response
FDF-06 · Share card
Page for your logbook
FDF-03 · Use cases
One car, a lot of deep space to look at
ORBIKA turns a raw JPL ephemeris into something you can read in five seconds or explore for an hour.
- Track
Follow Starman live
Distance from Earth, Mars and the Sun ticking in real time from JPL range-rate, plus speed and one-way light-time.
- Orbit
Explore the orbit
A top-down diagram of the inner solar system drawn from real vectors. Scrub 180 days back and 560 days ahead.
- Approaches
Watch close passes
The next closest moments to Earth and Mars, found by scanning six years of ephemeris at one-day steps.
- Classroom
Teach orbital mechanics
Show a class what heliocentric orbits, range-rate, AU and light-time look like with a real object that people recognise.
- Share
Share a logbook page
Export a 1200×675 flight-manual card with the live distance, speed and next close pass, or post it straight to X.
- Trust
Verify at the source
Every number is computed from the NASA/JPL ephemeris and labelled with its solution date. Nothing is invented.
FDF-04 · Procedure
How it works
Three steps from a NASA computer to your screen, with no keys, no accounts and no guesses in between.
- 01Source
JPL computes the orbit
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory fits the Roadster's trajectory to telescope observations and publishes it as a numerical ephemeris, solution after solution.
- 02Pipeline
ORBIKA reads the ephemeris
A server route asks JPL Horizons for position and velocity vectors relative to Earth, Mars and the Sun, interpolates between hourly steps and caches the result.
- 03Display
You see Starman live
Readouts tick forward using the JPL range-rate and re-sync every ten minutes. Nothing is invented, and gaps show as a dash.
Data pipeline
Caches: live state 10 min · orbit 12 h · approaches 24 h.
Glossary
- Range
- Straight-line distance between Starman and a body, in km.
- Range-rate
- How fast that distance is changing. Negative means approaching.
- Light-time
- How long a radio signal needs to cross that distance at 299,792 km/s.
- AU
- Astronomical unit, 149,597,870.7 km, the average Earth–Sun distance.
FDF-05 · Mission record
Flight timeline
6 Feb 2018
Launch
Falcon Heavy flies for the first time from Kennedy Space Center, pad 39A, carrying a Tesla Roadster and a mannequin nicknamed Starman.
7 Feb 2018
Heliocentric orbit
A third upper-stage burn places the stack on an orbit around the Sun with perihelion 0.99 AU and aphelion about 1.67 AU.
7 Oct 2020
Mars pass
JPL lists a Mars encounter at roughly 0.0495 AU.
22 Apr 2035
Predicted Mars pass
Closest predicted approach to Mars in JPL solution #11, at roughly 0.016 AU.
11 Jan 2047
Predicted Earth pass
JPL predicts a distant Earth encounter at roughly 0.032 AU.
Encounter dates and distances from the JPL Horizons object header for -143205.
FDF-06 · Questions
Mission control FAQ
Is this really live?
Yes, with a caveat. The state vectors come from the JPL ephemeris, interpolated to the current time. Between re-syncs, distances are extrapolated from the JPL range-rate.
Is the car actually still there?
The Roadster has not been tracked directly for years. JPL propagates its orbit from early 2018 observations, so the position is a high-quality prediction, not a camera feed.
Why does the distance rise and fall?
Starman orbits the Sun on a path that crosses Earth and Mars orbits. Earth and Mars move faster or slower, so the range to each keeps changing.
Do the close passes mean a near miss?
No. The approaches listed are the closest daily samples in the next six years, and they are still tens or hundreds of millions of kilometres.
Do I need to connect a wallet?
No. ORBIKA never asks you to connect a wallet, sign anything or trade. It is a read-only science tracker.
Is ORBIKA affiliated with NASA, SpaceX or Tesla?
No. It is an independent fan tracker that uses public NASA/JPL data.
Official CA
FDF-07GYsk59LLERPgsLjPz7gouZGUMW1tz7EAMhuFo4dzpump
Only trust the CA shown here and on our official X.
Say hello to Starman
He is currently very far away. Check exactly how far.