#WenFlight10 PostS36Kablooey

[jongoff]

Ok, at the suggestions of a few people on the earlier #WenFlight10? poll (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=62970.0), I'm creating this new poll for people to guess on the time given the test incident that destroyed Ship 36 this Wednesday. Poll will be open for five days.

Monty Python quotes/paraphrases riffing on Elon's "Just a scratch" tweet from yesterday (hopefully not offensive).

As with previous polls, please provide your thoughts on why you voted for a specific time.

~Jon

[Robotbeat]

Ha! Perfect poll options.

[Kaputnik]

I previously voted September. Shifted back one month to October due to the loss of S36 and the damage to the test stand.
I think it's entirely possible that there is a longer delay and a jump straight to V3.

[Llian Rhydderch]

Voted October, 'cause of the damage to ground equipment and likely need to order some complex weldments or special-order cryo tanks/pumps etc.

I, too, think it is entirely possible Musk pulls the plug on the v2 design/build, and just jumps ship to iteration v3.

[sdsds]

I'm predicting Flight 10 will be 105 days after the Ship 36 anomaly, so: 6/18/2025 + 105 = 10/1/2025 and thus I went with October.

My interquartile range is: 9/4/2025 to 10/28/2025
My 90% confidence interval is: 8/1/2025 to 12/5/2025

This is total garbage-in / garbage-out analysis based on a distribution with a mode of 104 days and a P90% of 156 days. That's less about what's possible and more about what I think would be acceptable to Musk.


(Dates in m/d/y format.)

[redneck]

I went with October as I think there will be some rethinking done that will slow things down a bit. IMO SpaceX is paying a price for hubris in trying to do everything at huge scale at once. Not the individual work in the field, but in the initial decisions to go huge.

[Robotbeat]

I previously voted September. Shifted back one month to October due to the loss of S36 and the damage to the test stand.
I think it's entirely possible that there is a longer delay and a jump straight to V3.

Possible, but this failure had nothing to do with the V2 design issues. I think the COPV was for cold gas thrusters.

[Robotbeat]

I voted August.

[nicp]

Sticking with September - which clearly would have been wrong.
Could be longer if Masseys damage takes a while.

[CraigLieb]

I was August in the old poll, being a bit of a pessimist. So, voting October now because of the theory that things take longer than expected.

[Kaputnik]

I previously voted September. Shifted back one month to October due to the loss of S36 and the damage to the test stand.
I think it's entirely possible that there is a longer delay and a jump straight to V3.

Possible, but this failure had nothing to do with the V2 design issues. I think the COPV was for cold gas thrusters.

The extra time it will take to rebuild the test stand gives more time to get V3 ready, so I see a real possibility that they move on from the obsolete V2 vehicles.

[baking]

I voted for 2026 under the assumption that Flight 10 will be from Pad B.

[DanClemmensen]

I'm assuming IFT-10 will be a V3 launch, so I voted Nov/Dec. SpaceX may choose to go directly to V3, or not. Repairing Massey's for V2 testing might not make sense if they think V3 is nearly ready. V3 requires work at Massey's and the completion of Pad 2. Nov/Dec is actually too aggressive for this scenario, but as ever I'm an optimist.

[soyuzu]

I'm assuming IFT-10 will be a V3 launch, so I voted Nov/Dec. SpaceX may choose to go directly to V3, or not. Repairing Massey's for V2 testing might not make sense if they think V3 is nearly ready. V3 requires work at Massey's and the completion of Pad 2. Nov/Dec is actually too aggressive for this scenario, but as ever I'm an optimist.

Does V3 require so much rework on ground facilities? Isn’t current V3 just V2 with Raptor 3?

[DanClemmensen]

I'm assuming IFT-10 will be a V3 launch, so I voted Nov/Dec. SpaceX may choose to go directly to V3, or not. Repairing Massey's for V2 testing might not make sense if they think V3 is nearly ready. V3 requires work at Massey's and the completion of Pad 2. Nov/Dec is actually too aggressive for this scenario, but as ever I'm an optimist.

Does V3 require so much rework on ground facilities? Isn’t current V3 just V2 with Raptor 3?

I don't know for Ship. Booster is much different. For Ship there are only two remaining V2 ships, and after those, Massey's will handle V3s. Therefore, it makes sense to focus on V3 Ships at Massey's. If the rebuilt GSE can also accomodate those two V2 Ships with little or no extra work, then sure, go ahead and do it. If accommodating V2 would delay or compromise V3 testing, then scrap the V2 Ships.

If V2 and V3 have very similar interfaces to the test stand at Massey's, then they probably have similar interfaces to Booster/HS and to Pad 1 SQD, and flying V3 Ship on a V2 Booster at Pad 1 would be feasible.

[sdsds]

SpaceX is now seriously channeling, "Just a flesh wound." Or maybe, "Well, I heal fast. You see, I got good genes."
Murder, She Wrote (1984) - S01E03 Birds of a Feather
https://y.yarn.co/e45df7b6-f57e-42c9-91c0-5f19a4453916.mp4

I'll be happily outside my interquartile range if it launches before September 4.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1956387234665332804

[AmigaClone]

Who predicted SpaceX would improvise a testing stand on OLM-1?

[jongoff]

Yeah, if they pull off a flight before the end of August, just barely over two months after the Ship 36 kablooey, that'll be pretty darned impressive. And yeah, I doubt many people predicted they'd be able to improvise the testing on OLM-1. That's part of why I do these polls early on -- I think it's more interesting when you don't know how they're going to try to solve the problem.

Regardless, I voted September, and even if they only fly a few days earlier than that, I'll be quite happy to have been over-conservative. Especially if the flight is a good and successful one.

~Jon

[thespacecow]

Who predicted SpaceX would improvise a testing stand on OLM-1?

This is pretty easy to guess if you think from first principles.

[Kaputnik]

My 'October' is not looking like a particularly safe bet right now. Sometimes it's good to be wrong!

[Chris Bergin]

Odd (yes, ODD, Jon ) thread title was breaking forum format, so put a space in it.

[jongoff]

Sorry for being somewhat silly with the original title.

[catdlr]

Sorry for being somewhat silly with the original title.

It makes for a good password.

[jongoff]

I was mostly trying to channel silly Twitter hashtags, like #WenHop? and the like.

[AmigaClone]

Sorry for being somewhat silly with the original title.

We all can use a bit of silly in our lives.

[jongoff]

And it looks like the 9 of you who voted for August were the winners this time around! Just a flesh wound.

Though for those of you who voted September (like me), I wouldn't feel too bad. We were pretty close. Glad the weather finally cooperated, and I'm also glad the flight has so far gone so smoothly.

Congrats to those at SpaceX who burned the candle at both ends to make a turn around like this happen so fast!

I'll give it a day or two before the Flight 11 timing poll.

~Jon

[Metalskin]

I'm learning that I'm pessimistic. Though I'm happy that my guesses are always wrong. This time only by a week

[jongoff]

I've been a little optimistic sometimes and a little pessimistic other times. But most of the guesses were within a few weeks, so I'd say that was pretty good, even if most of us were a tiny bit pessimistic.

~Jon

[redneck]

Since I voted October, most of you can mock me to your hearts content. Congratulations to the Starship team.

No, I haven't changed my mind that it was a mistake going for the gigantic with multiple new technologies.

[jongoff]

New poll for Flight 11 timing here: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=63443