Starship Flight 12 Timing Poll

[jongoff]

Ok, Starship Flight 11 is in the books, and frankly went about as smooth as I think SpaceX could've asked for. This was the last flight of the V2 Booster and Starship, with Flight 12 being the debut flight of V3. How soon do you think they'll be able to light the candle on V3 and let it slip the surly bonds of Earth? The turn around for Flight 10 after the Massey's explosion was faster than many expected, will they pull other rabbits out of their hat to get into v3 flight testing sooner than the conventional wisdome? Is Raptor V3 ready for primetime? How soon will all of the ground and launch infrastructure be ready?

As per usual, I'm doing this poll explicitly before we have great answers to all of those questions, to force people to make the best educated guess they can. I'm leaving the poll open for 11 days (so through Friday 10/24 evening time in the US), and I have the "allow users to change vote" option toggled, to allow people to rethink things as more info comes out.

As per usual, please share your logic on why you think a specific date range is most likely.

I decided to go with half month intervals through the end of April 2026, month intervals from there through the end of Q2, and then quarterly afterwards.

Happy guessing!

~Jon

[jongoff]

I'm going to stick my neck out and start with a late February 2026 guess. There's a chance SpaceX can find an infrastructure trick to allow them to test things and get ready even before the Massey's cleanup work, and other ground infrastructure work is fully ready to go, but I think there's a reasonably good chance we'll see a decent pause between this final V2 flight and the first V3 flight.

If I change my mind before the end of the voting, I'll leave the above paragraph untouched, and add a comment below explaining my new guess, and updated rationale.

~Jon

[sdsds]

February 19, 2026. That's based on a repeat of the 129 day interval between IFT-4 on June 6, 2024 and IFT-5 on October 13, 2024.

[DanClemmensen]

Late January. Best possible scenario if everything goes perfectly on all of these. I cannot predict which of these will cause the worst delay:
   *Masseys rebuild
   *Pad 2
   *Raptor 3
   *Ship V3
   *Booster V3.

[Metalskin]

I'm leaning towards March, but I think Feb is doable with how things are currently unfolding. Quite a few dependencies and if one slips...

[Vultur]

I was ready to vote for February  ... because I expect them to aim for January, but things will slip.

Predicting which half of February feels like a pure guess.

I'm going to guess first half of February, assuming they will be pushing very hard on the schedule since so many things (propellant transfer testing/development needed for Artemis and Mars, Starlink v3) depend on getting v3 working quickly.

That's still 4 months from today.

My big worry for a longer delay is that they don't seem to be pushing for a launch before end of year.

[c4fusion]

Just went with my gut feeling, I was feeling end of February or beginning of March.  I ended up with first half of March.

[CraigLieb]

I’m voting for fireworks on Valentine’s Day. Feb 14.

[Robotbeat]

I might vote early just so I don’t forget, but I kind of expect to learn significantly more in the next 10 days about their pace.

I’m about 70% confident they’ll launch by the end of March. But I’m also not entirely able to rule out a launch by the end of the year, maybe 5-10% chance.

[catdlr]

Does this throw a wrench into some of your predictions:

Lewis Knaggs@lewisknaggs42
Apparrently spring for ship catch which will be not long after flight 12

Elon Musk@elonmusk
·
Springtime

https://twitter.com/lewisknaggs42/status/1978129830777323648

[Robotbeat]

Not at all. I mean, if he had said January, it might’ve changed it a bit.

[AmigaClone]

Does this throw a wrench into some of your predictions:

Lewis Knaggs@lewisknaggs42
Apparrently spring for ship catch which will be not long after flight 12

Elon Musk@elonmusk
·
Springtime

https://twitter.com/lewisknaggs42/status/1978129830777323648

Spring 2026 starts on 1 March 2026 if using the meteorological definition or 20 March 2026 if using the astrological definition. In both cases, spring ends 92 days later. Note that this estimate is for Flight 13.

For now I will be keeping my late February estimate - pending new data.

[DanClemmensen]

Does this throw a wrench into some of your predictions:

Lewis Knaggs@lewisknaggs42
Apparrently spring for ship catch which will be not long after flight 12

Elon Musk@elonmusk
·
Springtime

https://twitter.com/lewisknaggs42/status/1978129830777323648

Spring 2026 starts on 1 March 2026 if using the meteorological definition or 20 March 2026 if using the astrological definition. In both cases, spring ends 92 days later. Note that this estimate is for Flight 13.

For now I will be keeping my late February estimate - pending new data.

Sorry, no. It's for a flight after 12. Earliest is flight 13, but IMO that is not likely for a catch attempt. 12 is almost certainly suborbital, 13 is first orbital and probably not a catch attempt, since a catch attempt is probably after 16 orbits but I suspect the first orbital flight will be only one or two orbits. So, I interpret "Springtime" to mean that Elon expects to see three or V3 flights before 20 June. Not unreasonable.

[catdlr]

Does this throw a wrench into some of your predictions:

Lewis Knaggs@lewisknaggs42
Apparrently spring for ship catch which will be not long after flight 12

Elon Musk@elonmusk
·
Springtime

https://twitter.com/lewisknaggs42/status/1978129830777323648

Spring 2026 starts on 1 March 2026 if using the meteorological definition or 20 March 2026 if using the astrological definition. In both cases, spring ends 92 days later. Note that this estimate is for Flight 13.

For now I will be keeping my late February estimate - pending new data.

Sorry, no. It's for a flight after 12. Earliest is flight 13, but IMO that is not likely for a catch attempt. 12 is almost certainly suborbital, 13 is first orbital and probably not a catch attempt, since a catch attempt is probably after 16 orbits but I suspect the first orbital flight will be only one or two orbits. So, I interpret "Springtime" to mean that Elon expects to see three or V3 flights before 20 June. Not unreasonable.

Dan,

I want a V3 flight as soon as everyone else. I'm tired of delays caused by RUDs.

Pad-2 (for V3 Booster and Ship) started construction one year and two months ago and is nearly finished. Massey would have begun the V3 modification as soon as S37 hadn't exploded; therefore, in my opinion, Massey is the main bottleneck to an earlier flight from the new pad.

On another note, wasn't the first V1 Booster/Ship pair just a test to fully evaluate Pad-1/OLM-1 and then destroyed? Wouldn't the first set of V3 (B18/S39) be the same?

Lastly, according to reports on the Booster and Ship sections coming out of the factory and delivered to the MBs, it takes 6-8 months to transition from the first section rollout to readiness for launch. B18 is almost stacked in MB1, but it is not outfitted yet. Ship 39 is currently being stacked, with its nose cone and PEZ dispenser being delivered from the factory last week. So, I believe the Ship might be the bottleneck.

The only hope for a faster turnaround for S39 is if the other sections for the ship coming out of the factory are properly dressed with tiles instead of the last two that came out half-naked.

If Massey and Pad-2 were the only bottlenecks, I would estimate a launch in early 2026. However, considering the time required to outfit both boosters and complete the stacking and outfitting of the ship, which typically takes 6-8 months, springtime seems more likely.

Now, if both the Booster and Ship are intended solely to test the integration of "Everything" (LV, V3 design and GSE), and get destroyed like was done for the first pair for Pad-1, then perhaps the first flight could seem more like mid-year.

And I didn't discuss the delivery of Raptors; as reported in the Raptors thread, they are fewer than halfway there with thoroughly tested engines.  But time can be saved by testing the pad and Massey with Booster/ship without engines for cryo testing and Wet/Dress rehearsals for both the LV and the new GSE infrastructure.

Tony.

[jongoff]

Does this throw a wrench into some of your predictions:

Lewis Knaggs@lewisknaggs42
Apparrently spring for ship catch which will be not long after flight 12

Elon Musk@elonmusk
·
Springtime

https://twitter.com/lewisknaggs42/status/1978129830777323648

If he's saying springtime for the first attempted Starship catch, which would be Flight 13 or 14, that suggests he at least thinks the Flight 12 is going to happen a little earlier than that, maybe in the Jan/Feb timeframe. Given that this Elon, that makes me think my late Feb estimate is probably a bit on the optimistic side, but not enough so for me to change my vote. Yet.

~Jon

[Craigles]

The last half of January 2025. I would be more optimistic if I knew when Massey's will be fully repaired.

[Robotbeat]

I’m voting first half of March for now but reserve the right to change it for a few days. I don’t particularly like all the clustering of votes in February… but hey.

SpaceX could definitely do it sooner. I’m doing the 50/50 date.

[Robotbeat]

I’m changing it to late February due to this. https://x.com/secduffynasa/status/1980257227760955637?s=46

[DanClemmensen]

I’m changing it to late February due to this. https://x.com/secduffynasa/status/1980257227760955637?s=46

I don't see how any amount of external pressure can make a change at this late date. SpaceX already has all the internal pressure it can take. What could they do? It's a truism that adding resources to a late project makes it later.

[Robotbeat]

I’m changing it to late February due to this. https://x.com/secduffynasa/status/1980257227760955637?s=46

I don't see how any amount of external pressure can make a change at this late date. SpaceX already has all the internal pressure it can take. What could they do? It's a truism that adding resources to a late project makes it later.

they did round the clock shifts to rebuild pad one after flight 1. They are not doing that now (but could flip that switch). Probably because there’s other things that they need to do that take time so acceleration by a few weeks doesn’t matter as much. External pressure, however, will provide more impetus to show progress on starship. It also increases the focus of the CEO on SpaceX