What is Elon Musk's Roadster orbital period?

Asked Feb 08 '18 at 09:19

Active Feb 08 '18 at 09:27

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On February 6th, 2018, SpaceX launched Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster to an elliptical heliocentric orbit as a dummy payload of the initial flight test of the new Falcon Heavy rocket.

What is the orbital period of Elon's Roadster ?
In other words, how long will it take to come back as close to the earth's orbit as it was at the end of the final burn ?

For reference, the car reached the following orbit: Credit to Elon Musk: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/961083704230674438

Mandatory eye-candy: Screenshot taken from SpaceX livestream "Live Views from Starman"

edited Feb 08 '18 at 09:27

asked Feb 08 '18 at 09:19

Quentin Hayot

1

The period based on Musk's tweet and the periapsis and apoapsis shown there is about 900 days as calculated in this answer as well as Scott Manley in the linked video there. However, this comment suggests those might not be correct. Let's wait a bit to see how this develops. – uhoh Feb 08 '18 at 09:29
Using the JPL Horizons projected orbit, I get 558 days. – uhoh Feb 08 '18 at 12:36

What is Elon Musk's Roadster orbital period?

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