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 100647 times)

Online spacenut

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #160 on: 06/07/2017 02:00 am »
I saw where the X-37 for the Air Force is to launch from 39A in August.  I thought it was supposed to be down to get ready for FH? 


Offline rockets4life97

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #161 on: 06/07/2017 03:18 am »
I saw where the X-37 for the Air Force is to launch from 39A in August.  I thought it was supposed to be down to get ready for FH?

My interpretation of this announcement from the Air Force combined with Hans statement at the post-CRS-11 press conference is that SLC-40 won't be activated until September (late summer/early fall). As a result, SpaceX will continue launching from LC-39A into August (and September if SLC-40 remains offline).

Offline Owlon

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #162 on: 06/23/2017 08:29 pm »
BulgariaSat-1 makes eight, with the next flight scheduled in just two days.

Online oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #163 on: 06/24/2017 01:35 am »
Some of the other implications are that with this next it will be 9 launches in 6 months. But also that in just the last 2 months it will be 5. At that rate you could have 15 more launches for the second half of the year. That gives a range of 18 to 24 for 2017.

But all indications is that there will be possibly 3 in July and 3 also in August. Bringing the number at the end of August to as high as 15. But that is where things slow down to probably not more than 2 a month for the remaining 4 months for a number of around 23 launches. The end of August wil be the true indicator of how the remaining of the year will play out as well as the probable number for the year.

Online Johnnyhinbos

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #164 on: 06/24/2017 02:02 am »
I had predicted 18, which is right in the wheelhouse for this cadence. However I think it's worth pointing out that I never expected SpaceX to launch AND land two previously flown boosters by June. That is worth repeating and remembering, because it's truly amazing.
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Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #165 on: 06/25/2017 10:20 pm »
Fantastic weekend for SpaceX. I predicted 15 for the year and now 6 months in I think I'm going to be under by at least 5 ... unbelievable.

Keep it going SpaceX, this Is really proving a year to remember for all the right reasons.

Online oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #166 on: 06/26/2017 02:55 pm »
If SpaceX was a country they would be the #1 launcher in the world.

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_chr/lau2017.htm

The 9 F9 launches in 2017 make up 22% of all the world's orbital launches.

Online ZachS09

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #167 on: 06/26/2017 03:59 pm »
Well, I guess I underestimated SpaceX too much. I predicted only 10 flights due to worries of a repeat of the AMOS 6 pad failure.
Liftoff for St. Jude's! Go Dragon, Go Falcon, Godspeed Inspiration4!

Online oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #168 on: 06/26/2017 04:55 pm »
Mean and median (50% below and 50% above) of the poll is about the same value of ~14.5 launches for 2017. If all goes well and somewhat to plan, SpaceX will reach that value or surpass it by end of August with an additional 5 or 6 launches for a total of 14 or 15.

What this basically says is with 15 launches half the respondents will have guessed wrong even if no further launches occur after August.

My analysis of what SpaceX was capable of doing in 2017 was 21-25 launches. That guess is looking stronger and stronger.

Added: A BTW a value of 21 means only 7.5% guessed a value of this much or more.
« Last Edit: 06/26/2017 04:58 pm by oldAtlas_Eguy »

Offline skybum

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #169 on: 06/26/2017 06:35 pm »
My prediction of 12 is certainly looking very shabby at this point. Couldn't be happier! Really pleased and amazed by SpaceX's progress.

That said, I continue to worry about payload ability. That giant backlog doesn't mean that there's a warehouse full of payloads queued up and ready to launch. A lot of those birds haven't been built -- or at least finished -- yet; the customers will have been biding their time. Although they of course *want* to launch ASAP, it's just an inefficient use of capital to build your payload too long before the expected launch date -- so if their expectation, based on launch rate thus far, was that it would still be another year or two, then those payloads won't be ready to go for a while.

Hopefully the last few months have lit a fire under the customers' tails and gotten their production lines moving. There will be some inertia, however. For that reason, I'd still be surprised if there were more than 18 launches this year. (Pulled a number out of a hat; I don't have any insider info).

(And obviously, I'd *love* to be surprised like that!)

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #170 on: 06/26/2017 06:58 pm »
Well, without really thinking about it here are 9 more launch payloads I think we can be confident will be ready this year:

Intelsat
Formosat
Iridium x3
CRS-12 & CRS-13
SES-11
X-37B

So purely in terms of payload availability I think 20 launches is easily doable by year end. But I do agree that at current rate of progress there may be some payload gaps in 2018 or 2019.
« Last Edit: 06/26/2017 07:58 pm by FutureSpaceTourist »

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #171 on: 06/26/2017 08:29 pm »
Well, without really thinking about it here are 9 more launch payloads I think we can be confident will be ready this year:

Intelsat
Formosat
Iridium x3
CRS-12 & CRS-13
SES-11
X-37B
Falcon Heavy Demo

Presuming they can modified TEL and GSE with no issues.

Supposedly without a payload from a customer. But SpaceX might put something interesting up.


Online oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #172 on: 06/27/2017 06:43 pm »
Well, without really thinking about it here are 9 more launch payloads I think we can be confident will be ready this year:

Intelsat
Formosat
Iridium x3
CRS-12 & CRS-13
SES-11
X-37B
Falcon Heavy Demo

Presuming they can modified TEL and GSE with no issues.

Supposedly without a payload from a customer. But SpaceX might put something interesting up.
Considering the fact that 5 to 6 of those listed of the 10 will be launched by the end of August that only leaves at most 5 launches for the remaining 4 months. 3 of those are launches from SLC-4E. Which leaves only CRS 13 and FH launches in the list one each for LC=39A and LC-40. There will likely be a couple additional but another launch from LC-39A after FH may not happen this year but 2 to 4 launches this year is highly likely (one of those 2 to 4 is the CRS-13 launch).

Offline Lar

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #173 on: 06/27/2017 06:53 pm »
July and August seem gappy right now... it's not clear that we can see 3 a month there.  We may only see one in August due to payload availability. What a quick turnaround that was.
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Online gongora

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #174 on: 06/27/2017 07:02 pm »
August actually looks quite likely for three (CRS-12, Formosat-5, OTV-5).  And there will probably be more payloads ready than rockets available in September.

Offline Lar

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #175 on: 06/27/2017 07:15 pm »
What do you know? it's not like you're the keeper of the manifest thread now or anything.  oh, wait...

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40231.0 (the manifest thread)

Well, September is gappy then ...
« Last Edit: 06/27/2017 07:31 pm by Lar »
"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

Offline Tass

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #176 on: 06/27/2017 07:43 pm »
Woohoo!

For the first time I wasn't too optimistic. I've been one too high the previous three years. Each year I tried to adjust to a bit more pessimistic to correct the apparent optimistic bias I had. And still ended up one too high because of the accidents. Amazingly my predictions still increased every year.

Now it looks like they might blow right through my prediction of nine for this year. Please no accidents. I would very much like to be very wrong.

Offline Lar

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #177 on: 06/27/2017 08:00 pm »
Yeah let's not jinx it with premature celebrations. :)
"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 oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #178 on: 06/27/2017 08:34 pm »
The new shakeout
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/06/27/spacex-will-try-for-third-falcon-9-launch-in-less-than-two-weeks/
is only 1 in July and 3 in August. So only 4 more by end of August. But before September actually had no launches in the manifest but it now has several. So those 2 that would have been in July shifted pushing them out into September (1 LC-4E and 1 LC-40?).

But the real question in all of this is what is the status of LC-40?

Offline rockets4life97

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Re: POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017
« Reply #179 on: 06/27/2017 11:00 pm »
Core production looks to be the bottleneck for the scarcity of launches in July. We know the first Block IVs should be rolling off the line, so this could be part of the reason for the gap in cores rolling off the production line.

If more customers are willing to take re-used boosters (e.g. SES-14 and SES-16), that should allow SpaceX to continue to increase their launch rate by shifting the bottleneck to pad availability.

Tags: range 
 

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