How Soon Will Starship Return to Flight after the Flight 7 Anomaly?

[jongoff]

Ok, quick poll this time on how fast people think SpaceX will be able to recover from the Flight 7 anomaly. The flight was only a few hours ago, so there aren't any public indications yet of what a likely root cause was. At least as of what I've seen, the FAA hasn't formally declared whether or not they will require a mishap investigation.

So what do you think? Minor hiccup? Serious delays? Somewhere in the middle?

Poll is open for three days, and once you've voted, feel free to share your rationale.

~Jon

[jongoff]

I guessed sometime in April. I'm hearing some people suggesting that debris fell outside the hazard zone, which might trigger an investigation. I could be wrong, but assuming there's an investigation, it'll likely delay things a bit beyond just the root cause analysis and modifications to future vehicles to fix the root cause. Given that they're also requiring a simultaneous mishap investigation for New Glenn, the workload on the FAA AST might also drive delays. All that said, SpaceX also has a lot more experience with Starship than after Flights 1 and 2, and the FAA AST also has a lot more experience working with SpaceX on Starship, so my guess is the delays won't be as long as they were previously.

Just my opinion, at a time when we definitely have way too little information to make more than an educated guess. But that's the point of this type of poll -- just trying to see what people are thinking before everyone has had a chance to settle into the new conventional wisdom.

[Metalskin]

Hmm. I think it boils down to whether there is an investigation or not. Trying to discern fact from people's biases but it appears to me that maybe there will not be an investigation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've chosen March, as I think without an investigation, and with changes to mitigate the root cause, it seems reasonable. With an investigation, I'd be pushing it back a few more months.

[deltaV]

I voted March since Elon's tweet implies February but Elon is usually quite optimistic.

[DanClemmensen]

I voted March. I think it is formally a mishap, but this formalism does not affect that SpaceX must do anyway, which is find and fix the problem. Since it's (likely) a formal mishap, they will produce a report and submit it to FAA, but since they will keep FAA in the loop throughout the process the FAA will sign off as soon as the report is submitted. SpaceX does not need to wait to fix the problem after they identify it, so the FAA approval is not on the critical path.

[sdsds]

April 14, doubling Elon's estimate.

[AmigaClone]

The four biggest items that will affect the Starship Return to Flight will be:

* How fast SpaceX can determine the cause(s) of the RUD;
* Once the cause(s) of the RUD is(are) determined, SpaceX will need to figure out a means of preventing that from repeating itself.
* The last step would be presenting those findings and corrective measures to the FAA closing their investigation.
* The speed at which the FAA could respond to those findings - which might be affected by the BONG booster failure to make a safe landing.

At this time it's unknown how fast each of those items would take - much less their total amount of time.

[jongoff]

The four biggest items that will affect the Starship Return to Flight will be:

* How fast SpaceX can determine the cause(s) of the RUD;
* Once the cause(s) of the RUD is(are) determined, SpaceX will need to figure out a means of preventing that from repeating itself.
* The last step would be presenting those findings and corrective measures to the FAA closing their investigation.
* The speed at which the FAA could respond to those findings - which might be affected by the BONG booster failure to make a safe landing.

At this time it's unknown how fast each of those items would take - much less their total amount of time.

Yup, which is why asking people their opinions now is more interesting than in a week or two when we have more information. :-)  We might not need a poll at that point.

~Jon

[jongoff]

https://x.com/jeff_foust/status/1880311303941812284

So it looks like they will have a mishap investigation. How fast that gets closed out remains to be seen, but that's one thing we have clarity on. Also, there's at least one report of possible property damage on the ground now, which would indicate that at least some of the debris may have (assuming the report is credible) fallen outside the allowed boundaries.

~Jon

[redneck]

I went with April. Apparent property damage on the ground warrants a much closer look than any previous anomalies.

[laszlo]

I went with April for the same reasons as Redneck, plus:

1. Reported interference with airliner operations will require at least investigation to see if the reports are true. If true, will need remediation which may involve input from multiple airlines, adding to the time.

2. The spectacular videos of debris passing directly overhead above a populated island create an emotional issue that has to be visibly addressed in such a way that there is no appearance of lack of concern for safety. There's also the legitimate question of what would have happened if the RUD had happened earlier. Would the debris have continued on the same track and come down on the islands like buckshot in a flock of ducks? That also needs to be addressed in a way that makes multiple countries happy, or at least willing to allow the overflights.

In fact, those videos may actually cause more delay than the technical issues. The ethical debate over deliberately sending 100 ton stainless steel hypersonic projectiles over populated areas and the objections raised by countries under the flight path may be the lasting legacy of this test.

[jongoff]

So it looks like the most common vote was the correct one this time around, with a liftoff on March 6th 2025. Should I start another poll for how soon Starship will RTF after this second anomaly?

~Jon

[Alvian@IDN]

I choose May 2025 date because I expected the engineers to be actually competent and not rushing the fix

Real thing are stranger than fiction

[sdsds]

Should I start another poll for how soon Starship will RTF after this second anomaly?

It's too soon to apply my prediction methodology, which is based solely on applying a multiplier to Elon's estimate. I can provide one algorithmically though: take the number of days Elon estimates (n) and predict the actual result will be n^1.1.

[jongoff]

Should I start another poll for how soon Starship will RTF after this second anomaly?

It's too soon to apply my prediction methodology, which is based solely on applying a multiplier to Elon's estimate. I can provide one algorithmically though: take the number of days Elon estimates (n) and predict the actual result will be n^1.1.

Ok, I gave it a few days, but decided to put the new poll up now. I don't know if we have any sort of estimate yet from Elon (I've been off and on social media), but I didn't want to go too far past the actual Flight 8 launch/anomaly before putting up the new poll:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=62608