Poll

When will an orbital-class booster fly more than once in a 24-hour period?

2024-2026
6 (12.8%)
2027-2030
21 (44.7%)
2031-2035
11 (23.4%)
2036-2040
7 (14.9%)
never
2 (4.3%)

Total Members Voted: 47


Author Topic: When will an orbital-class booster fly more than once in a 24-hour period?  (Read 9370 times)

Offline Eer

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We've seen polls asking about flights per year, but not so many on the real core of rapid-reuse like that which may be needed to support refueling flights, etc.  So, for this poll, the criteria are:

1) any launch booster from any provider, not just SpaceX Super Heavy Booster;
2) orbital class booster - that is, sub-orbital missions (including point to point) are NOT included here - that might make another interesting poll, but not this one - so, New Shephard is excluded from this poll, for example;
3) two or more successful missions launch within a contiguous 24-hour period with the same booster; It's the period between launches of successful booster flights that is of interest, here; a "success booster flight" is one in which the booster successfully performs its mission to light engine(s), fly to its orbital class booster mission objective altitude and range, separate from its payload/2nd stage, descend, land/recover", and then be made ready to launch again;
4) air-launch vehicles and their carriers are not included in this poll;
5) method of landing/recovery/catching of the booster following the first mission is not of concern - legs, chopsticks, parachutes, bounce-houses, whatever, all allowed;
Clarification:  Launch of the SAME booster twice within 24 hours

My assumption is that this will be the pacing item on the way to reaching 1000 flights in a year, for example.

Users are allowed to change their votes. One voter per user. No end-date for the poll.
[Note - this is different from "normal" polls, and is subject to change if moderators ask me to do so]
« Last Edit: 10/11/2023 05:53 pm by Eer »
From "The Rhetoric of Interstellar Flight", by Paul Gilster, March 10, 2011: We’ll build a future in space one dogged step at a time, and when asked how long humanity will struggle before reaching the stars, we’ll respond, “As long as it takes.”

Offline Robotbeat

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I voted 2036. You can get to 1000 launches per year without getting 2 flights in 24 hours by one booster if you have at least 10 boosters. SpaceX already has a lot more than 10 Falcon boosters and nearly that many Super Heavy boosters (which are yet to be reused, but shows spaceX is making a lot of them).
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Offline neoforce

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Great poll but I wish the choices were a bit more distributed, maybe 2 year amounts.  That way we would see a curve of guesses.

For example, I voted 2027-2030 but I'm much closer to 2030 than I am 2027.

Online AmigaClone

Great poll but I wish the choices were a bit more distributed, maybe 2 year amounts.  That way we would see a curve of guesses.

For example, I voted 2027-2030 but I'm much closer to 2030 than I am 2027.

Another choice I wish existed is "After 2040" since it might take a while before a launch provider is comfortable launching a booster twice in a 24 hour period.

While less of an issue at a location where there are several close launch pads would be how soon would the launch provider has a launch pad capable of multiple launches a day?

Offline Eer

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Great poll but I wish the choices were a bit more distributed, maybe 2 year amounts.  That way we would see a curve of guesses.

For example, I voted 2027-2030 but I'm much closer to 2030 than I am 2027.
I wondered about that ... if there is too  much concentration, will run another version with finer granularity - right now, though, I'm fascinated with the bimodal distribution ...
From "The Rhetoric of Interstellar Flight", by Paul Gilster, March 10, 2011: We’ll build a future in space one dogged step at a time, and when asked how long humanity will struggle before reaching the stars, we’ll respond, “As long as it takes.”

Online DanClemmensen

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Thinking more about this, I realize that a high-cadence launch site would have an extra booster, for redundancy, and best practice would be to alternate among all your boosters at the site. Thus it may be some time after it becomes possible to cycle a booster in 24 hours until the first time it actually happens. Example: Starship Tanker operations might get to one a day cadence from one site, but the site will have two boosters. They can operate with just one booster but then want to be prepared in case a booster has a problem. This site will not see a single booster fly twice in 24 hours until they need to fly three missions in 24 hours.

Offline DeimosDream

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I don't know about 1000/year, but I expect tanker refueling campaigns will provide intermittent demand for high flight rates.

I'll vote 2024-2026. At the very latest I expect the 4Q 2026 Mars transfer window will see a booster fly twice in 24h.

 

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