#WenFlight10?

[jongoff]

Ok, here's the latest Starship launch timing poll. Once again giving only a week to respond -- we won't know the answer by then, which is why it's fun to get people's opinions. As previously, if you want to share your thoughts on why you voted when you did, please do so.

~Jon

[jongoff]

I voted for (late) July 2025. My guess is that like last time, they'll do some moderate tweaks in the hopes of getting to the next data point, because conclusively stomping the problems will take longer than they want to. I should say that I've been off of Twitter for the past several days, so I'm saying that without seeing if Elon or others have weighed in on things.

~Jon

[DanClemmensen]

July. Each launch is two nearly separate experiments: Booster and Ship. I think they will evaluate the B14-2 RUD and tweak B15 for the next Booster experiment relatively quickly, but the S35 issues are likely to require more analysis.

[sdsds]

I went with an interval of 83 days between Flight 9 and Flight 10, resulting in a predicted launch on 8/18/2025.
So: August.


Finding the Weibull distribution with:
Mode = 82.0
P90% = 123.0

Using golden section search yields:
Shape (k): 3.040576
Scale (lambda): 93.492715
Optimization error: 0.00000026
Converged: Yes

Verification:
Target mode: 82.00, Calculated: 82.00
Target P90%: 123.00, Calculated: 123.00

Percentiles:
P5%: 35.2
P10%: 44.6
P25%: 62.1
P50%: 82.9
P75%: 104.1
P90%: 123.0
P95%: 134.1

[deltaV]

I voted August since that's 2-3 months from the last flight and that's about average timing for previous Starship flights.

[AmigaClone]

I am 75% confident that Flight 10 will occur NET August 2025. The remaining 25% would be in late July (no sooner than 6 weeks after Flight 9).

[sstli2]

I think that they have given up on serious fixes for the current ships (36, 37) until a more thorough revamp of the propellant system. They are just going to do whatever band-aids they can and send it. The re-entry data is more valuable to them than these ships are. I vote July.

[Vultur]

They're apparently trying for a shorter turn around time, so July? (I don't see 3-4 weeks from that Tweet as doable, given mishap investigation etc, even if that was meant as between 9 and 10 vs flights after 10).

[lightleviathan]

I'm voting June. I think that SpaceX is in a "send it" kinda mood with the V2 stack right now and probably won't make adequate fixes for RVac engine glow and engine bay fires, and will just probably add more reinforcement to the tanks to prevent leakages and then fly.

Similar situation with the booster, but that seemed like a one-off failure so they'll probably fly that very fast as well.

However, this is in an absolute best case scenario. I think the fixes will be easier to implement than for Flight 7, which had a rapid turnaround, so this might be faster. We'll have to see for S36's static fires and how that goes, and if the first 6-engine SF goes well then I think we could see a 30 day turnaround.

[Vultur]

I'm voting June. I think that SpaceX is in a "send it" kinda mood with the V2 stack right now and probably won't make adequate fixes for RVac engine glow and engine bay fires, and will just probably add more reinforcement to the tanks to prevent leakages and then fly.

Similar situation with the booster, but that seemed like a one-off failure so they'll probably fly that very fast as well.

That does make sense - if v2 is rapidly going to be obsolete destroying them in tests has little cost - but do you think FAA will sign off on that?

[Skye]

I mean, Elon said in the presentation they they’re going for a kind of “just lob it and see what happens” kind of deal. “Launch every 3 to 4 weeks with the 3 remaining V2 ships”. Probably just the same flight profile as F(light)9 - Booster splashdown, Ship Splashdown. All old-gen, so expended. They might go for orbit and potentially a ship catch on the last two flights (orbit F11, catch F12) if they’re feeling risky.

[Kaputnik]

Voted September. Previous flights have been nearly three months apart. You'd think that after this string of mishaps they would want to take a more rigorous approach to debugging the system
Also, on flight 10 they also had booster issues, so in some ways there's more to fix right now.

[Kaputnik]

I mean, Elon said in the presentation they they’re going for a kind of “just lob it and see what happens” kind of deal. “Launch every 3 to 4 weeks with the 3 remaining V2 ships”. Probably just the same flight profile as F(light)9 - Booster splashdown, Ship Splashdown. All old-gen, so expended. They might go for orbit and potentially a ship catch on the last two flights (orbit F11, catch F12) if they’re feeling risky.

Surely they wouldn't get a license to go for full orbit insertion? Starship now has a proven track record of tumbling out of control in space. Nobody wants a hundred tonnes of stainless steel raining down on a random location. So long as they're suborbital, everybody knows where the debris will land. They need to demonstrate that they can maintain control of the vehicle reliably before they attempt actual orbital insertion.

[sdsds]

The news right now is that Ship 36 just exploded prior to a planned static fire at Massey's. Attached is an NSF screengrab from a post by @hartspace. Just from the dramatic visuals it's easy to believe the test stand sustained non-trivial damage.

I think it's fair to say this wasn't expected by most poll participants.

[Vultur]

Yeah this is probably a quite significant delay.

Hard to tell how much at this point. The next Ship probably isn't that far away, but does this say anything about the design?

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the test stand is pretty resilient to explosions, but ...

[Metalskin]

Hard to tell how much at this point. The next Ship probably isn't that far away, but does this say anything about the design?
...

This is the first time this type of event has happened for the v2, so will be interesting to see what ends up being the root cause. I'm loath to say it's related to previous issues with v2. I'm sure we'll find out eventually one way or the other.

[Yggdrasill]

I change my vote from july to september. 

[deltaV]

The news right now is that Ship 36 just exploded prior to a planned static fire at Massey's. Attached is an NSF screengrab from a post by @hartspace. Just from the dramatic visuals it's easy to believe the test stand sustained non-trivial damage.

I think it's fair to say this wasn't expected by most poll participants.

I change my vote from july to september. 

Time for a new "when flight 10" poll?

[AmigaClone]

I am 75% confident that Flight 10 will occur NET August 2025. The remaining 25% would be in late July (no sooner than 6 weeks after Flight 9).

My confidence level that on the NET August 2025 date is now at 97.5%.

[Kaputnik]

I already voted September and that might still be possible. It would put the interval between flights 9 and 10 at about the same length as the RTF following the loss of Amos 6.