The title of this post is incorrect. We have to wait a few hours to know if the rocket man has made it to Mars orbit.
EDIT: It's not a Mars orbit, its a solar orbit that puts it close to Mars at times.
From the linked article:
"If all phases of the flight are successful - and that will not be known until at least 6.5 hours after lift-off - the Tesla and its passenger will be despatched into an elliptical orbit around the Sun that reaches out as far as the Planet Mars."
Actually, no, once the 2nd stage cuts off the trajectory is mostly fixed and we know what orbit it is in. There are, I believe, two more small burns that will be done to adjust the trajectory, but these are more of an adjustment to what kind of Martian transfer orbit it is in. It already has the hyperbolic velocity to leave Earth's orbit, and enter solar orbit with an apogee at the same distance as Mars.
In 6.5 hours SpaceX will have finished everything they wanted to test with this flight I believe, including a number of post-launch checks of various systems and sensors on the payload, and those re-ignition tests of the 2nd stage.
Unless I'm mistaken, it's not on a trajectory out of Earth orbit currently.
It is in a parking orbit, where it will sit for a few hours and then will reignite and will be set on a trajectory toward "martian orbit".
IIRC currently they are testing (or proving depending on how confident they are) that they can have the second stage sit for several hours in space before reignighting.
'made it to mars orbit' is a weird way of saying it too - it will be going out as far as mars is, but it won't be orbiting mars - it will be orbiting the sun.
It is not a Mars orbit. It's an orbit around the sun which reaches into the same orbital path Mars has. It will not interact with the planet in that way.
That's the plan, but this article is way too premature and the title is a little misleading. They want to put it into solar orbit at Mars' distance.
However, they are going to wait 6 hours to fire the second stage for a third burn which would actually put it in orbit. They want it to be exposed to radiation and test how well the booster holds up before the final burn.
Meaning that they didn't launch at the right time to arrive at Mars, due to where Mars is in its orbit currently. It'll pass through the imaginary circle around the sun which is Mars' orbit, it's just that Mars will at a different part of the orbit at that time.
But actually, it seems they decided to just empty the tanks and get as much delta-v as possible, and it'll go all the way into the asteroid belt as a result.
Yes, depending on time of year. They could probably have aimed to hit Mars, but stopping in Mars orbit would (probably) require another burn on the Mars end.
Regardless, like other posts have said, they haven't actually left Earth orbit yet. There's one more burn in about 5 hours.
EDIT: It's not a Mars orbit, its a solar orbit that puts it close to Mars at times.
From the linked article: "If all phases of the flight are successful - and that will not be known until at least 6.5 hours after lift-off - the Tesla and its passenger will be despatched into an elliptical orbit around the Sun that reaches out as far as the Planet Mars."