Elon Musk's car is currently livestreaming its journey to Mars

CAP CANAVERAL, FLORIDA,07 Feb. - (ANA) - Having successfully tested its Falcon Heavy rocket, SpaceX is now livestreaming the incredible journey of the rocket’s payload: Elon Musk’s Tesla sports car.

The Tesla Roadster, complete with SpaceX’s astronaut suit for a driver, is now beginning its 400 million kilometre journey towards Mars as part of a heliocentric orbit that could potentially see it float through the solar system for up to a billion years.

The car is currently still attached to the Falcon Heavy’s upper stage and is currently undergoing a six hour epic journey through the radiation belts that surround our planet.

If the rocket and car can make it through the belts then a second burn will take place pushing the car into its final resting place, a vast heliocentric orbit around the Sun.

Just a few hours earlier the car had been atop SpaceX’s brand-new Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket to be launched since the Space Shuttle.

With only a 50/50 chance of success during the test flight there was no guarantee that the rocket would even make it off the ground let alone deliver its electric car payload.

Despite early concerns about the weather, the launch was a success with the rocket not only delivering the car into space but both side boosters then returned to Earth and landed themselves.-(ANA) -

AB/ANA/ 07 February 2018 - - -