SpaceX progress towards a 100 launch year

[meekGee]

Okay, I got a little impatient waiting for the next April 1st update.

(Yes, I also peek at my presents under the Christmas tree)

I guess I am the official X-Axis Asker.  Why two Jans and two Decs?  I get one double (13 ticks for 12 segments) but two?  This implies 13 months...

[AnalogMan]

Okay, I got a little impatient waiting for the next April 1st update.

(Yes, I also peek at my presents under the Christmas tree)

I guess I am the official X-Axis Asker.  Why two Jans and two Decs?  I get one double (13 ticks for 12 segments) but two?  This implies 13 months...

The marker interval on this chart is set at 28 days, so you'll occasionally get two markers falling in the same month (I peeked at the original spreadsheet).

[meekGee]

Okay, I got a little impatient waiting for the next April 1st update.

(Yes, I also peek at my presents under the Christmas tree)

I guess I am the official X-Axis Asker.  Why two Jans and two Decs?  I get one double (13 ticks for 12 segments) but two?  This implies 13 months...

The marker interval on this chart is set at 28 days, so you'll occasionally get two markers falling in the same month (I peeked at the original spreadsheet).

ok cool, so again it's just the tick labels.

Interesting graph.
For 2022 it shows that they started out below average, and ended up above average.
It's a bit confusing, but the way it is plotted, it's guaranteed that the last circle of the year will be bang on the line, since, well, that's how the line is defined. (de facto number of flights for the year, -1, but that hardly matters)

So if they start below average, and then catch up, it means that during the later flights, they were doing better than the average rate.

If you look at the mid-march point, it extrapolates to only 45-47 flights per year.  They caught up towards October, so were flying well over 60/yr during that period.  Then they stabilized on 60.

[kevin-rf]

So a little bit of fun tonight when I ran the numbers. 

2023, SpaceX has launched 17 times.
9 from SLC-40
4 from LC-39A (blame all the ISS and Heavy launches)
4 from SLC-4E (Weather has been a major factor)

SpaceX has several Heavy and ISS launches thru June that will suppress LC-39A's launch rate.  On the plus side I believe SpaceX has three RTLS missions in a row from SLC-4E that should help with the rate.

The graphs are nice and tell a bunch,  it's a thankless job and everyone's a critic. I admit I shook my head a little when I opened the sheet. But I am not the one who volunteered to maintain it. Great job!

Maybe for fun,  I'll do one for each pad. It is something I often wonder about.

[xyv]

Yup, everyone's a critic.  I could post the update more often but I don't want to clutter the thread.  I have mentioned before the struggle to whip Excel's labels into something that makes sense.  But yes, 28 day major grids and 7 day minor.  Easy way to track it in your head is by quarter:

Every 13 weeks/quarter we need to see 25 launches.  Not going to make it this quarter (no surpise).  See last year 11 (versus 15 for 60) in the first quarter - 12 if you count April 1st (91 days ~= 1 quarter).  Dates, months, etc. make the imperial system look postiviely rational - there is no metric time (Napolean tried...)

[Robotbeat]

Yup, everyone's a critic.  I could post the update more often but I don't want to clutter the thread.  I have mentioned before the struggle to whip Excel's labels into something that makes sense.  But yes, 28 day major grids and 7 day minor.  Easy way to track it in your head is by quarter:

Every 13 weeks/quarter we need to see 25 launches.  Not going to make it this quarter (no surpise).  See last year 11 (versus 15 for 60) in the first quarter - 12 if you count April 1st (91 days ~= 1 quarter).  Dates, months, etc. make the imperial system look postiviely rational - there is no metric time (Napolean tried...)

Again, I think it makes a lot more sense that we see a growing number of launches per quarter than a constant amount. We saw the same thing last year. And most years. (That’s what the exponential fit by Analogman showed.)

[ZachF]

Nope, the current launch rate is compatible with an exponential curve the has a year on year growth of (1-(100/61))=64%.

Analogman’s curve shows very clearly the growth rate behaves a lot like an exponential curve even over a decade. No linear rate shows anything close to as much agreement with the long term data.

If you factor in that one starship launch will be equivalent to ~8 Falcon launches, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this CAGR roughly continue for several more years to come.

For instance, this year might end up at 92 F9 launches and 1 SS launch (equal to 100 F9)

Next year might be 110 F9 + 6 SS (equal to 158 F9)

2025 might be 90 F9 and 20 SS (equal to 250 F9)

2026 might be 60 F9 and 40 SS (equal to 400 F9)

Etc, etc.

[DanClemmensen]

Nope, the current launch rate is compatible with an exponential curve the has a year on year growth of (1-(100/61))=64%.

Analogman’s curve shows very clearly the growth rate behaves a lot like an exponential curve even over a decade. No linear rate shows anything close to as much agreement with the long term data.

If you factor in that one starship launch will be equivalent to ~8 Falcon launches, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this CAGR roughly continue for several more years to come.

For instance, this year might end up at 92 F9 launches and 1 SS launch (equal to 100 F9)

Next year might be 110 F9 + 6 SS (equal to 158 F9)

2025 might be 90 F9 and 20 SS (equal to 250 F9)

2026 might be 60 F9 and 40 SS (equal to 400 F9)

Etc, etc.

But your factor of ~8 is for payload mass to orbit, which is only one metric. For some payloads (megaconstellations) this may be OK, but SS will replace some F9 on a 1-for-1 basis when the F9 payload needs a unique orbit and the SS launch is cheaper than the F9 launch. In other cases, (Starlink) the availability of SS lets the customer launch heavier satellites, not fewer satellites, so again one SS replaces one F9.

Your other problem is that a ramp to 40 SS in the third year would be unprecedented in the recent history of orbital LVs, far faster than the F9 ramp, which was much faster than any other recent LV.

[Robotbeat]

Nope, the current launch rate is compatible with an exponential curve the has a year on year growth of (1-(100/61))=64%.

Analogman’s curve shows very clearly the growth rate behaves a lot like an exponential curve even over a decade. No linear rate shows anything close to as much agreement with the long term data.

If you factor in that one starship launch will be equivalent to ~8 Falcon launches, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this CAGR roughly continue for several more years to come.

For instance, this year might end up at 92 F9 launches and 1 SS launch (equal to 100 F9)

Next year might be 110 F9 + 6 SS (equal to 158 F9)

2025 might be 90 F9 and 20 SS (equal to 250 F9)

2026 might be 60 F9 and 40 SS (equal to 400 F9)

Etc, etc.

So I actually agree that likely launch rate by itself is not going to continue growing at the same rate indefinitely at 64% growth year over year, and I agree it’s quite possible there will be some near-term trade between launch rate and mass per launch as SS comes online while launch mass continues growing. But they’re on track to do 64% year on year launch rate growth so far this year.

Just as an aside: If we count last year as 1000t IMLEO, then it’ll take 14 years to reach 1Mt/year IMLEO at a 64% year on year launch mass growth rate. Not sure what they’ll be launching to get there because the whole Gen1+Gen2 constellations may be 40,000 satellites at 2t each, implying no more than 20,000t/year even if you replace every 4 years (at they’ll get to around 20,000t/year in 6 years at 64% annualized mass growth rate).

[ZachF]

Nope, the current launch rate is compatible with an exponential curve the has a year on year growth of (1-(100/61))=64%.

Analogman’s curve shows very clearly the growth rate behaves a lot like an exponential curve even over a decade. No linear rate shows anything close to as much agreement with the long term data.

If you factor in that one starship launch will be equivalent to ~8 Falcon launches, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this CAGR roughly continue for several more years to come.

For instance, this year might end up at 92 F9 launches and 1 SS launch (equal to 100 F9)

Next year might be 110 F9 + 6 SS (equal to 158 F9)

2025 might be 90 F9 and 20 SS (equal to 250 F9)

2026 might be 60 F9 and 40 SS (equal to 400 F9)

Etc, etc.

But your factor of ~8 is for payload mass to orbit, which is only one metric. For some payloads (megaconstellations) this may be OK, but SS will replace some F9 on a 1-for-1 basis when the F9 payload needs a unique orbit and the SS launch is cheaper than the F9 launch. In other cases, (Starlink) the availability of SS lets the customer launch heavier satellites, not fewer satellites, so again one SS replaces one F9.

Your other problem is that a ramp to 40 SS in the third year would be unprecedented in the recent history of orbital LVs, far faster than the F9 ramp, which was much faster than any other recent LV.

I expect Starship to ramp faster than most simply because unlike when falcon first flew, they don’t have a mostly green launch ops team, they have the most experienced, successful, and productive team in history and they are *actually* running a real hardware rich development process. They literally build SS just to get better at building them right now and scrap them after.

The vast majority of starship flights, especially at first, will be for Starlink. It will make sense to switch any other payload that doesn’t use it’s full potential to F9 until they reach a fast enough cadence where they can launch faster than they can build SLv2 satellites.

I aslo suspect SpaceX will offer up its Starlink V2 bus in the future for other custom satellites. A single starship could drop a load of them off in an MTO orbit and they could all use enlarged argon tanks to drift up or down into whatever individual orbit they need to get to.

[ZachF]

Nope, the current launch rate is compatible with an exponential curve the has a year on year growth of (1-(100/61))=64%.

Analogman’s curve shows very clearly the growth rate behaves a lot like an exponential curve even over a decade. No linear rate shows anything close to as much agreement with the long term data.

If you factor in that one starship launch will be equivalent to ~8 Falcon launches, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this CAGR roughly continue for several more years to come.

For instance, this year might end up at 92 F9 launches and 1 SS launch (equal to 100 F9)

Next year might be 110 F9 + 6 SS (equal to 158 F9)

2025 might be 90 F9 and 20 SS (equal to 250 F9)

2026 might be 60 F9 and 40 SS (equal to 400 F9)

Etc, etc.

So I actually agree that likely launch rate by itself is not going to continue growing at the same rate indefinitely at 64% growth year over year, and I agree it’s quite possible there will be some near-term trade between launch rate and mass per launch as SS comes online while launch mass continues growing. But they’re on track to do 64% year on year launch rate growth so far this year.

Just as an aside: If we count last year as 1000t IMLEO, then it’ll take 14 years to reach 1Mt/year IMLEO at a 64% year on year launch mass growth rate. Not sure what they’ll be launching to get there because the whole Gen1+Gen2 constellations may be 40,000 satellites at 2t each, implying no more than 20,000t/year even if you replace every 4 years (at they’ll get to around 20,000t/year in 6 years at 64% annualized mass growth rate).

If we use history as a guide, eventually that exponential growth will go more linear and slow down. When that occurs who knows.

As far as launches, I suspect lunar and BEO ops will take a large chunk of that. If spaceX can say deliver cargo to the lunar surface for <$1000/kg, expect a whole lot of countries to take them up on it and a moon base made of many little encampments to sprout up around the landing site.

BEO test flights will also consume a lot of launches just from the needed tanker flights.

[DanClemmensen]

I expect Starship to ramp faster than most simply because unlike when falcon first flew, they don’t have a mostly green launch ops team, they have the most experienced, successful, and productive team in history and they are *actually* running a real hardware rich development process. They literally build SS just to get better at building them right now and scrap them after.

The vast majority of starship flights, especially at first, will be for Starlink. It will make sense to switch any other payload that doesn’t use it’s full potential to F9 until they reach a fast enough cadence where they can launch faster than they can build SLv2 satellites.

I aslo suspect SpaceX will offer up its Starlink V2 bus in the future for other custom satellites. A single starship could drop a load of them off in an MTO orbit and they could all use enlarged argon tanks to drift up or down into whatever individual orbit they need to get to.

Putting rideshare launches together is apparently like herding kittens. It appears to be an administrative nightmare. Furthermore, if SpaceX meets their goals then launch costs will be very low, so the incentive to rideshare is low.

The only remaining incentive would be if number of launches is constrained, e.g. by range availability. But if this is true, it's also true for all LVs launching from Florida, including F9.

[ZachF]

I expect Starship to ramp faster than most simply because unlike when falcon first flew, they don’t have a mostly green launch ops team, they have the most experienced, successful, and productive team in history and they are *actually* running a real hardware rich development process. They literally build SS just to get better at building them right now and scrap them after.

The vast majority of starship flights, especially at first, will be for Starlink. It will make sense to switch any other payload that doesn’t use it’s full potential to F9 until they reach a fast enough cadence where they can launch faster than they can build SLv2 satellites.

I aslo suspect SpaceX will offer up its Starlink V2 bus in the future for other custom satellites. A single starship could drop a load of them off in an MTO orbit and they could all use enlarged argon tanks to drift up or down into whatever individual orbit they need to get to.

Putting rideshare launches together is apparently like herding kittens. It appears to be an administrative nightmare. Furthermore, if SpaceX meets their goals then launch costs will be very low, so the incentive to rideshare is low.

The only remaining incentive would be if number of launches is constrained, e.g. by range availability. But if this is true, it's also true for all LVs launching from Florida, including F9.

Rideshares would be easy if they all use stackable Starlink v2 buses, and if they are dropped off in an MTO they could use their argon thrusters to push themselves into whatever individual orbit they need.

[ZachF]

But seriously though, if SpaceX offers it’s s Starlink v2 bus plus a ride to space on Starship and custom orbits using cheap argon that’s multiple cost advantages layered on top of each other that essentially no one would be able to compete against for a long time…

The V2 satellites have dry masses not that much smaller than a modern geostationary satellite, and when the full constellation is up they will literally be making more of them in a day than a satellite bus like the SSL-1300 sees in a good year.

[Robotbeat]

Since several of you seemed interested in how the long term trend in Falcon 9 launches looks when compared to an exponential curve, I decided to produce the following chart.

It shows the cumulative total of F9 launches (all versions of the vehicle) from the first launch up until March 9, 2023 as a function of time.  The horizontal axis is days since the first launch.

Data courtesy of Gunter's Space Page:  https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/falcon-9.htm

The exponential trend line is the one generated by Excel.  This is not an attempt to make any predictions about future launches, merely to show that on the whole the cumulative launch totals do roughly follow an exponential pattern.

BTW, the exponential curve fit on your graph shows a growth rate parameter of:
r=0.000930 (1/day)
Doubling time is just t_d=ln(2)/r=ln(2)/(0.000930/day)= ~2.0 years, implying a 41% annual growth rate in the long term.

In other words, the current growth rate based on the number of launches last year and so far this year is about 64% year on year, which is enough to get to 100 launches in 2023, BUT that’s faster than the long term launch growth rate of 41%.

[Zed_Noir]

But seriously though, if SpaceX offers it’s s Starlink v2 bus plus a ride to space on Starship and custom orbits using cheap argon that’s multiple cost advantages layered on top of each other that essentially no one would be able to compete against for a long time…

The V2 satellites have dry masses not that much smaller than a modern geostationary satellite, and when the full constellation is up they will literally be making more of them in a day than a satellite bus like the SSL-1300 sees in a good year.

Before offering the v2 comsat bus. More likely SpaceX will offer a stripped down v2mini comsat bus as a customizable CubeSat and PicoSat deployer with propulsion on rides up on the Falcon 9 and possibly the Starship later with modified pez dispenser system.

[Comga]

It is funny that this thread goes quiet on the day SpaceX launches twice. 
With yesterday's double-header, the ten launch trailing average pace reached 93.8 launches per year, one tenth above it's previous high.
Considering that the year started with the value around 70, SpaceX is making good "progress towards a 100 launch year".

[kevin-rf]

Remember how I was musing what are the launch rates of each pad, well I decided to spend a little time to plot it out.

A few interesting tidbits.

SLC-40 for 2023 is currently trending towards 50 launches.
SLC-4E for 2023 is currently lagging behind the target of 30 launches.
LC-39A due to all the ISS and Heavy launches on the docket for 2023 is trending toward only 20 launches.

That still can add up to 100.

I grabbed and forced (stupid European and American date format differences) Gunter's table into excel (attached) if anyone wants to play with the data. Epoch days are used on each graph (January 1st is 1, December 31st is 365).

btw. Gunther, if you are lurking, somehow you are missing CRS SpX-27 in your tables.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/falcon-9.htm

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/_rykllan/status/1637519839114809346

@elonmusk's 100 launches plan as of Mar 17, 2023

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1637829899636310017

SpaceX’s three main competitors in Russia, Europe, and the United States have launched three rockets in 2023. SpaceX just launched three missions in three days.

The SpaceX steamroller has shifted into a higher gear this year
We're not at airline-like operations yet, but we're getting a lot closer.

ERIC BERGER - 3/20/2023, 1:40 PM

Is it possible that SpaceX has succeeded in making orbital launches boring? Increasingly, the answer to this question appears to be yes.