When will the first Starship reach orbit? (2022/2023)

[dglow]

New poll, closes in 30 days.

Here we are again. 

The previous poll ended without a result, and here's Elon's word on the subject:

https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1317229714025623553

What do you think? When will a Starship prototype reach orbit?

NB: Starship intentionally flying to just shy of orbital velocity, as described by Elon, will be considered “Starship reaching orbit” for purposes of this poll.

[deltaV]

I think the first Starship will reach orbit sometime in the next year (i.e. between now and June 14 2023). In the poll I voted for December 2022, which is the midpoint of that year.

[JayWee]

Elon time time...
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1536747214755745792

Starship will be ready to fly next month. I was in the high bay & mega bay late last night reviewing progress.
We will have a second Starship stack ready to fly in August and then monthly thereafter

[eeergo]

If the project continues to receive NASA (or other gov agency)'s support and the financial ecosystem around Musk's enterprises doesn't collapse too hard in the meantime, I fully expect it to need at least a year to achieve space ops capabilities, even if short of orbital. Optimistically, NET May '23. I'm also assuming the design can actually work with its level of propulsion complexity and need to focus in parallel on so many other things it should be providing, beyond just "reaching orbit", not the least its main HLS contract.

Any of those conditions not being met would significantly prolong that timeline well into 2024 IMO, with the possibility the project may not be viable at all - as much as having such a rocket operational is every space enthusiast's dream.

[rliebman]

reaching orbit is certainly important.  maybe the poll can be / should be refined to include successful reentry and landing. 

[dglow]

reaching orbit is certainly important.  maybe the poll can be / should be refined to include successful reentry and landing.

A good thought. We had this poll a while back regarding outcomes for each stage of the first flight test.

What about this: “On which flight test (first attempt, second, ...) will each of the following (orbit / reentry / touchdown / etc.) be successfully accomplished?”

If enough express interest (by liking this post) I will put that together.

[DanClemmensen]

If the project continues to receive NASA (or other gov agency)'s support and the financial ecosystem around Musk's enterprises doesn't collapse too hard in the meantime, I fully expect it to need at least a year to achieve space ops capabilities, even if short of orbital. Optimistically, NET May '23. I'm also assuming the design can actually work with its level of propulsion complexity and need to focus in parallel on so many other things it should be providing, beyond just "reaching orbit", not the least its main HLS contract.

Any of those conditions not being met would significantly prolong that timeline well into 2024 IMO, with the possibility the project may not be viable at all - as much as having such a rocket operational is every space enthusiast's dream.

HLS is not the primary focus. Starlink V2.0 is the primary focus. HLS is on a schedule that can slip with the rest of Artemis. Starlink V2.0 drives SpaceX's revenue stream.

[eeergo]

If the project continues to receive NASA (or other gov agency)'s support and the financial ecosystem around Musk's enterprises doesn't collapse too hard in the meantime, I fully expect it to need at least a year to achieve space ops capabilities, even if short of orbital. Optimistically, NET May '23. I'm also assuming the design can actually work with its level of propulsion complexity and need to focus in parallel on so many other things it should be providing, beyond just "reaching orbit", not the least its main HLS contract.

Any of those conditions not being met would significantly prolong that timeline well into 2024 IMO, with the possibility the project may not be viable at all - as much as having such a rocket operational is every space enthusiast's dream.

HLS is not the primary focus. Starlink V2.0 is the primary focus. HLS is on a schedule that can slip with the rest of Artemis. Starlink V2.0 drives SpaceX's revenue stream.

I don't believe that, but neither did I say that if you actually read what I wrote. Another matter is that work on carrying Starlinks is more straightforward and an in-house project, so they'll likely fly those first, with the above assumptions.

As for the importance of its revenue, a couple of years ago some insisted beyond all doubts that Starlink v1 would be paying for Starship.

[dglow]

Starlink deployment : Starship development flights  ::  booster return development : paying customer F9 flights

[jongoff]

On the last two polls, I voted for the last category short of never, and was right both times. This time though I'm voting for September. That would be almost exactly six years after Elon announced his Mars Colonial Transport concept at the IAC. I think if he had said in 2016 that they'd have their first orbital flight of MCT in six years, I would've said that was perfectly reasonable. That's only a little bit longer than the time it took to go from announcement to first flight of Falcon 9.

~Jon

[dglow]

Bump. This poll closes in two days.

[eeergo]

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and with it it's now been exactly a year after Musk's infamous "Turkey Email", in which the statement "“We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks next year [i.e. 2022]" was pronounced. Of course, I'm aware mostly everyone agrees that was a deliberate misconstruction to achieve a certain goal (whether it was worth it, reasonable, effective or legal is another matter), but there's that.
Regardless of what it means to the future of SpaceX, Starlink, the Starship program or Musk's fortunes, the fact of the matter is that it seems pretty clear by now that not only is SS not flying at a cadence equal or greater than a launch a fortnight that should have been required to avoid "genuine risk of company-wide bankrupcy" - but it will not launch *at all* within 2022, in any variant, prototypical, expendable, cargo-only, propellant depot, Moonship, crewed or else. I am aware of the stated goal/HLS projection of December, but that's just stale, and was always an optimistic assessment I suspect was coming straight from the company's CEO.

I would argue it's unlikely it will fly, at least minimally-successfully, in 1Q 2023 either, but I may be biased because I voted May 2023 in this poll. At this point in time I would delay that estimate somewhat, maybe to summer '23 with some luck and no major RUDs, applying the same caveats I posted a few months ago (i.e. continued NASA, or other gov agency's, support and provided the financial ecosystem around Musk's enterprises doesn't collapse too hard, which it is kind of skirting right now -otherwise it probably goes well into 2024 IMO, with the possibility the project may not be viable at all)

PS: This was the prior poll where 242 respondents (86%) were far too optimistically unaware of the true status of the program. And the previous one before that, whose latest date was "May '21 or later" seems fantasy at this point, had 74%. This present poll stands at 70%, for reference, likely to climb, albeit with less respondents. It's been quite a trip.

[sdsds]

[...] Musk's infamous "Turkey Email", in which the statement "“We face genuine risk of bankruptcy if we cannot achieve a Starship flight rate of at least once every two weeks"
[...] It's been quite a trip.

Indeed it has been!

The general tone with regard to Starship seems to have grown more cautious. One somewhat obvious result is the date when they can be expected to achieve that flight rate has moved to the right on the calendar. Somewhat less obvious, but for me certainly true, is that my confidence interval has widened. Put more plainly, I think they'll likely achieve this rate later, and I'm less certain about exactly when it will happen. To reflect both those changes I've updated my crystal ball prediction about when that flight rate will be reached.

TL;DR — they'll get there somewhere between May 2024 and March 2025, with 50% confidence.

In my optimistic scenario the first Starship launch occurs before Feb 1, 2023 and the next two launches occur in the following 5 months, with the number of launches doubling for each 5 month interval. (See first attached image.) This gets them to a rate of 0.51 launches per week (one launch every other week) on May 1, 2024.

In my pessimistic scenario the first Starship launch occurs before March 31, 2023, and the doubling interval is every 6 months rather than every 5. (See second attached image.) This gets them to rate of 0.5 launches sometime between September 30, 2024 and March 31, 2025.

So that gets me my inter-quartile range.

[eeergo]

Worthy of note that the next local maximum in the poll has been left behind (i.e. over 81% of respondents), with the public NET maiden launch date now having crossed over to Q2.

Expectations of achieving orbit, or thereabouts, have also been publicly tamed to "80% within 2023", which coincidentally mirrors the "prediction" in the OP - only that was referred to 2021 and included a higher percentage range.

https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1317229714025623553

https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1633195304026624000

[eeergo]

Almost smack-on with the first launch date (voted May, was April 20th), although I did revise my prediction half a year ago to summer... but then I remembered this poll is about orbit (or pseudo-orbit as this flight test profile was christened lately).

So yeah, I was either just right in the best of hypothesis i.e. a new test flight as soon as practicable, as per Musk's latest tweet, and full success, which is quite unlikely given the result of today's test- or wildly optimistic (IMO this pushes back possibility of reaching orbit to at least 2024 if ever, but it's still too early to tell without knowing more details, so I won't revise my prediction just yet), in spite of all the pushback I received, from fans and "those in the know" alike.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649050306943266819

[eeergo]

Getting close to a new launch attempt, and the next opportunity to meet the conditions of this poll.

Right now there's a possibility Q3 2023 (the last local maximum before "2025 or later") is still in the cards. If the test slips beyond the next three weeks though, we'll get into desertic territory as far as poll option voting choice goes, with no votes for Q4 2023, and only 2 votes for 1H 2024.

EDIT mid-September: Looks like Q3 is now out, with sometime in October being the new NET for a second launch attempt, so firmly in Q4 territory. If it goes through in that timeframe and is successful, nobody would have bet that. If it isn't, but there's a next one and it third time is actually charm, maybe we'll have two clairvoyants here...

[eeergo]

Close, but no cigar (in spite of the impressive apparent engine behavior) on this one today, losing the upper stage at around 6.7 m/s, or around 85% of orbital velocity regimes. Again, it was close and the rocket did get well above the Kármán line.


Next attempt almost certainly happen next year at this point, barring unexpected anomalies, so Q1 2024 at the earliest is now the poll's horizon.

[eeergo]

This poll is now (finally, after at least two previous one since 2020) closed.

IFT-3 did not achieve a stable orbit, but that was expected and planned for. It did achieve orbital velocity though, nominally at 7.36 km/s.

Congratulations to the clairvoyant member that chose the winning Q1 2024 option, although the slightly more pessimistic Q2 2024 voter was very close to right, just 16 days short. True (positive perigee) orbit may well be within this year's reach in any case.