Poll

How many SpaceX flights do you anticipate in 2017?

None
0 (0%)
1
1 (0.3%)
2
1 (0.3%)
3
0 (0%)
4
0 (0%)
5
0 (0%)
6
5 (1.6%)
7
5 (1.6%)
8
8 (2.5%)
9
8 (2.5%)
10
24 (7.5%)
11
18 (5.6%)
12
45 (14.1%)
13
36 (11.3%)
14
24 (7.5%)
15
31 (9.7%)
16
25 (7.8%)
17
16 (5%)
18
26 (8.1%)
19
9 (2.8%)
20
14 (4.4%)
21-25
21 (6.6%)
26-30
2 (0.6%)
31-35
0 (0%)
more than 35 !!!!
1 (0.3%)

Total Members Voted: 320

Voting closed: 01/19/2017 06:46 pm


Author Topic: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017  (Read 100482 times)

Offline MikeAtkinson

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #100 on: 01/20/2017 05:50 pm »
On the other side, who the hell voted >35? It is more than anything listed in manifest (notoriously optimistic in itself)!

Well SpaceX seem to be aiming for one launch every 2 weeks from 39A (that is 24) + 8 from Vandy + 4 months of a launch every 2 weeks from SLC-40 (9 more). So an optimist would say 41!

Add in a break in rhythm for FH and the inevitable weather and range delays (those pesky boats and planes) and 35 seems possible.

I voted 27 (which is possibly the 2nd most optimistic) and that would only launch 87% of the manifest.

As SpaceX should have over 20 cores available this year and they will have three launch sites available for the last few months and they have demonstrated a cadence of a flight per 3 weeks from one launch site, then anything under 17 implies that there will be another launch failure. My conclusion is that most of the votes were from pessimists, despite the reputation for having lots of SpaceX fanboi around, it seems that only one voted :o

Offline Lar

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #101 on: 01/20/2017 06:49 pm »
On the other side, who the hell voted >35? It is more than anything listed in manifest (notoriously optimistic in itself)!
As SpaceX should have over 20 cores available this year and they will have three launch sites available for the last few months and they have demonstrated a cadence of a flight per 3 weeks from one launch site, then anything under 17 implies that there will be another launch failure.
... or something else external that prevents things... payload shortage (probably not this year but within a year or two if they chew the manifest???) ban on launches by the government, UFO invasion, etc.

None of those seem very likely. So ya maybe we are all pessimists.
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #102 on: 01/20/2017 07:15 pm »
As SpaceX should have over 20 cores available this year and they will have three launch sites available for the last few months and they have demonstrated a cadence of a flight per 3 weeks from one launch site, then anything under 17 implies that there will be another launch failure. My conclusion is that most of the votes were from pessimists, despite the reputation for having lots of SpaceX fanboi around, it seems that only one voted :o

They have not yet demonstrated a sustained cadence at that rate over many months. Nor have they shown they have enough experienced personnel to support concurrent mission planning, integration etc on multiple pads over many months.

The whole history of SpaceX is that things turn out harder than they expected, although they get there in the end. I have no trouble believing that they'll achieve it next year, but for this year my guess is that the ramp up won't be as fast as they think (hence I plumped for 15.)

Offline philw1776

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #103 on: 01/21/2017 03:13 pm »
13 last year and 13 again this year.  Hope to underachieve.
Risk of failure causing a launch hiatus at even above 90% reliability makes high teens to 20s less probable.
FULL SEND!!!!

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #104 on: 02/01/2017 05:14 pm »
An item missed even by me, is the capability of the HIF at 39A to process and handle multiple payloads and cores in parallel.

The core for Echostar 23 is in its last week of processing.

Another core is being processed for the CRS-10 flight. In fact it had been in the HIF for a while anticipating a short duration between launches. Now the order is reversed but the shortened duration capability is now evident.

The key here is that SpaceX could literally maintain a less than 2 week duration between launches with this very large HIF. So the minimum time between launches of ~14 days set by the practical limit of duration at SLC-40 does not apply at LC-39A.

The ability of processing not only 2 cores but 2 payloads in parallel would allow a 30 day easy processing schedule for payloads and cores but launch at 15 days or even a possible every 10 days since the HIF is large enough to easily process up to 5 cores and larger and more payloads than the SLC-40 HIF could ever process.

So my earlier 21+ pick stands even with the delays because the launch schedule out of LC-39A could be rather brisk of 2+ per month. Add to that the every other month launch from SLC-4 and the limiting factor for number of launches is the manufacture rate of Upper Stages.

Offline rockets4life97

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #105 on: 02/19/2017 07:32 pm »
2 launches. The first person who chose 1 launch has officially lost.

Offline EgorBotts

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #106 on: 02/19/2017 07:45 pm »
As of February 19

Number of people who were wrong: 1 (0,3%)
Number of people who are right at this date: 1 (0,3%)
Assuming anything can happend, number of people that could still be right: 319 (99,7%)
Maximum number of people that could be right at end of year: 45 (14.1%)

Probability of enjoying launch statistics after a succesfull launch: 100%

Offline HIP2BSQRE

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #107 on: 02/19/2017 08:51 pm »
Well --SpaceX has done 2 launches in 6 week.  We expect at least another 2 before the end of March.  That will be 4 per quarter.  I think that I voted for 13.  But if SpaceX can keep the rate up the min should be around 16+ for 2017.  Now with three pads open starting in the fall - it seems very doable.  Time will tell.

Offline meberbs

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #108 on: 02/19/2017 09:52 pm »
Well --SpaceX has done 2 launches in 6 week.  We expect at least another 2 before the end of March.  That will be 4 per quarter.  I think that I voted for 13.  But if SpaceX can keep the rate up the min should be around 16+ for 2017.  Now with three pads open starting in the fall - it seems very doable.  Time will tell.
Just for some more math: They could be at 3 by the end of Feb. At 3 launches in 2 months gives 18 launches in a year, if 2 then launched in March, that would be 5 in 3 months, or 20/year. Obviously they might not keep up at that rate, or these launches could be delayed for all sorts of reasons, but the high end votes aren't out of the running. (Except for the one that was for more launches than the expected available number of payloads.)

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #109 on: 02/24/2017 09:13 am »
So looks like SpaceX are aiming for another 7 (conceivably 8) launches by end of June (or two a month from March onwards):

Quote
Industry official: @SpaceX has 7 launches from mid-March (EchoStar 23) to mid-June (@IridiumComm Next No. 2).

https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/834877195021615108

Obviously remains to be seen if they can achieve it, but we know Iridium have been told June for their next launch so SpaceX seem confident enough for the next few months to be telling customers.
« Last Edit: 02/24/2017 09:15 am by FutureSpaceTourist »

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #110 on: 02/25/2017 10:14 am »
From the Iridium delay to June is the bottle neck in the build or testing of boosters that is limiting launch rate to less than 2 a month. Probably less than 1.5 per month. But after June the launch rate should pick up. So total of launches through end of May will probably be around 6 or 7. But after June at 2 a month the launch total could reach 12 or 13 by end of August. Add another 8 through to the end of year and you get 20 or 21.

Offline vapour_nudge

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #111 on: 02/25/2017 11:34 am »
From the Iridium delay to June is the bottle neck in the build or testing of boosters that is limiting launch rate to less than 2 a month. Probably less than 1.5 per month. But after June the launch rate should pick up. So total of launches through end of May will probably be around 6 or 7. But after June at 2 a month the launch total could reach 12 or 13 by end of August. Add another 8 through to the end of year and you get 20 or 21.

But, but, this just can't be right. That would mean my prediction was wrong

Offline meberbs

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #112 on: 02/25/2017 03:34 pm »
From the Iridium delay to June is the bottle neck in the build or testing of boosters that is limiting launch rate to less than 2 a month. Probably less than 1.5 per month. But after June the launch rate should pick up. So total of launches through end of May will probably be around 6 or 7. But after June at 2 a month the launch total could reach 12 or 13 by end of August. Add another 8 through to the end of year and you get 20 or 21.

But, but, this just can't be right. That would mean my prediction was wrong
Exactly, and it would mean my admittedly optimistic prediction might be right, that's just inconceivable :P

Offline rockets4life97

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #113 on: 02/26/2017 01:08 pm »
There aren't any ULA launches from the Cape from late March until late June. So, that is a 3 month period where SpaceX won't have range conflicts. If they are going to achieve a high launch rate from the Cape this year, I think we'll start to see it in this 3 month period.

This may also explain why Iridium 2 was pushed to mid-June. SpaceX wants to take advantage of having the range all to themselves at the Cape to lower the backlog.

Offline skybum

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #114 on: 02/27/2017 09:31 am »
From the Iridium delay to June is the bottle neck in the build or testing of boosters that is limiting launch rate to less than 2 a month. Probably less than 1.5 per month. But after June the launch rate should pick up. So total of launches through end of May will probably be around 6 or 7. But after June at 2 a month the launch total could reach 12 or 13 by end of August. Add another 8 through to the end of year and you get 20 or 21.

I'm a huge SpaceX fan, but feel like others are being too optimistic here. I really do think that SpaceX is very much on the right track, however booster availability isn't the only bottleneck here. We've also seen launches slip due to:

- Pad availability
- Range availability
- ISS visiting vehicle scheduling conflicts
- Payload availability

Note that none of those things are particularly within SpaceX's zone of control. So even if they do everything 100% right, there will still be a meaningful lag time while the rest of the world figures out how to deal with the advent of cheap and frequent space launches.

For this reason, I voted for 12 launches this year -- a 50% increase year-on-year. That would be solid, satisfactory progress. Obviously there's a lot of uncertainty. Fewer than 8 launches would be sorely disappointing, and more than 18 would be utterly gobsmacking.

Just suggesting that it might be good to temper expectations a bit, so that you can appreciate that SpaceX is making good progress even if they don't do dozens of launches this year.

Offline envy887

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #115 on: 02/27/2017 01:49 pm »
12 is only an increase if they have another failure, since they were on pace for 12+ in both 2015 and 2016.

A year without failures would be great. A 50% increase in rate would be great. Both of those together would get them to 18+.

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #116 on: 03/13/2017 09:25 pm »
My estimate still stands at 23.

6 by 1 June (4 more total in March/April/May from LC39A only)
8 in June thru September (2 per month - 1 LC39A and 1 LC4E)
9 in Oct thru Dec (3 per month - 1 LC39A, 1 SLC-40, and 1 LC4E)


Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #117 on: 03/17/2017 02:14 pm »
Now at count of 3 at 2.5 months into 2017.
At that rate that is 14 for the year. But SpaceX is aiming for 6 by 1 June.

Until reach 6 the poll is in a no-man's land since no one voted for 3 4 or 5.

Offline EgorBotts

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #118 on: 03/19/2017 01:08 pm »
As of March 19, after 3 orbital flights

Number of people who were wrong: 2 (0,6%)
Number of people who are right at this date: 0 (0,0%)
Assuming anything can happend, number of people that could still be right: 318 (99,4%)
Maximum number of people that could be right at end of year: 45 (14.1%)


Offline Comga

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #119 on: 03/19/2017 03:37 pm »
As of March 19, after 3 orbital flights

Number of people who were wrong: 2 (0,6%)
Number of people who are right at this date: 0 (0,0%)
Assuming anything can happend, number of people that could still be right: 318 (99,4%)
Maximum number of people that could be right at end of year: 45 (14.1%)

To me, this is less of a contest of who is "right" (with wonderful prizes!) than it is a way to harness the wisdom of crowds to see what the consensus is.
Our collective impression is between 13 and 14 launches this year. 

It is not yet the end of the first quarter of the year.  It's pretty early to be adjusting projections for the year.
You can do all the extrapolation and calculation and discussion of the two failures, description of launch pads, tracking of first stages, and contemplating on reuse, but each of us has read about all of these and formed our various opinion.    Yours is just as valid as the other 300+ that were entered into the poll.

(those of you who didn't vote, you are just "the critic".  Get in the ring next time.)
YMMV, as may your opinion
« Last Edit: 03/19/2017 03:38 pm by Comga »
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Tags: range 
 

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