Predictions 2021

[Lekhan]

I just wanted to admit some UK Space agency plans for nearest future.
10 new satellites to be built in Glasgow in next three years as part of new innovative constellation service.
It will be as small as shoe boxes and will help companies to access space more easily.
Also UK Space agency planning to collect data that is indispensable for ocean and weather forecasts and climate understanding over the next decade with The Sentinel-6 satellite, which is the size of a small 4x4 car and will orbit around Earth 830 miles above our planet.
I think that's some interesting and good news.

[Robert Hags]

I just wanted to admit some UK Space agency plans for nearest future.
10 new satellites to be built in Glasgow in next three years as part of new innovative constellation service.
It will be as small as shoe boxes and will help companies to access space more easily.
Also UK Space agency planning to collect data that is indispensable for ocean and weather forecasts and climate understanding over the next decade with The Sentinel-6 satellite, which is the size of a small 4x4 car and will orbit around Earth 830 miles above our planet.
I think that's some interesting and good news.

Yes, you are right. Britain is actually taking a step forward. Although it still needs to catch up with NASA and ESA, so in the future UK Space agency will not be behind. But for this reason very neccesarry to allocate more funds for the space industry.
Also I wouldn't be sure about the climate as that thing changes everytime and very difficult to predict what will happen in 50 years. It would be great if the agency cooperated with the Ministry of Defense, since the advanced countries are now developing the space industry in the defense spheres. And as we know, competition and the arms race almost always brought the development of science and technology.

[50_Caliber]

SpaceX will get to orbit with the Starship by years end. Heat tiles and orbital refueling will present some problems for them to overcome.

Mars Perseverance will find evidence of life on Mars.

Artemis program will see major shifts in their priorities due to changes in presidential administrations, possibly even defunded.

All the rest of the space industry- China's lunar probes will provide some interesting data, other space agencies should show some modest success.

Honestly, SpaceX and it's ambitions will loom ever larger and be the focus of humanities efforts in space.

[Toast]

Here's my predictions

The Good:
-Starship successfully reaches orbit
-US regains global launch lead
-Rocketlab reflies a first stage
-Starliner has successful uncrewed return to flight

The Bad:
-Artemis 1 delayed again and does not fly in 2021
-Firefly has their inaugural launch, but it fails to reach orbit
-No other US small launch company successfully reaches orbit
-SpaceX has at least two Starship RUDs during flight testing
-Still no space tourism launches

The Ugly:
-Elon tweets something stupid again and triggers another public backlash

[freddo411]

It's groundhog day again for predictions.   So similar to last year (2020):   I did really well predicting last year, 18/22.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=49397.msg2011747#msg2011747

2021 Predictions

* JWST does not launch in 2021.   I hope I'm wrong about this.
--- JWST manages to squeak in a launch on Dec 25th, just before the end of 2020

* SLS does not launch in 2021.   

* Ariane does not field a reusable rocket.

* ULA does not field a reusable rocket.

* Blue Origin does not launch an orbital rocket in 2021.

* 49 years after the end of Apollo program, no human will have gone beyond LEO. (No dear moon in 2021)

* China successfully flies an impressive mission that provides some Chinese firsts, and some overall firsts.

* A Starship DOES launch to at least 15km in 2021.
 --- Technically, Starship flew to a lower altitude ceiling.   

* A Starship launches high enough and fast enough to test it's heat shield.

* A Super Heavy Booster hops.

* Falcon Heavy flies again

* Crew Dragon flies at least once (again).

* Falcon 9 continues to fly more than Atlas V.  Falcon 9 reliability in 2021 is as perfect as Atlas V's.

* SX flies more orbital missions than any other year.  More than 26.

* A reused F9 S1 will fly on it's 9th flight, and it's 10th flight.

* Starlink satellites #1400 - ?? will reach orbit.   SX will offer Starlink service anywhere in the continental USA.  SX sets record for the operator of more satellites than the rest of the world combined.

* Over 100,000 Starlink terminals operating by end of 2021.   Equivalent to a 100 million dollar a year revenue stream.  (corrected)

* SpaceX wins fewer Human Lunar lander funds than it's competitors, despite their lower costs, high demonstrated historic reliability, and actual existing, flying hardware.  This, in hindsight, will prove to be a mistake.

 --- SURPRIZE.  SpaceX wins the HLS competition.   Other bids are rejected

* Boeing flies a Starliner, it has problems (different than the MET timer and parachute connections), but NASA and Boeing put on smiles and call the mission a success.

* Rocket lab flies to orbit at least 7 times

 --- 6 attempts, 5 successes in 2021

* Rocket lab has success in it's reusable first stage development program, it reflies a first stage.

* Another small sat launcher flies successfully to orbit

* A small sat launcher fails to achieve an attempted orbital flight .

* A Russian rocket or spacecraft suffers a significant problem

 --- I was SO, COMPLETELY right about this one

* A European speaks out (again) against "subsidies" for SpaceX from the US government

* A European asks for (more) subsidies for Ariane from European states.

* Ariane launches 5 or fewer rockets ( not including VEGA or soyuz)

Edit:  Final score for 2021 is 18/27

[DreamyPickle]

-US regains global launch lead

According to wikipedia the US launched 38 times this year versus 35 for China and is likely to finish the year ahead. It's also the biggest US launch rate in many years, maybe since the 60s.

That statistic considers Electron to be an US rocket.

[Toast]

-US regains global launch lead

According to wikipedia the US launched 38 times this year versus 35 for China and is likely to finish the year ahead. It's also the biggest US launch rate in many years, maybe since the 60s.

That statistic considers Electron to be an US rocket.

I was using Ed Kyle's numbers, which consider Electron a kiwi rocket. He places the total at China 35, US 30 for this year. Even without Electron it'll be close, depending on how many Starlink launches SpaceX can cram in this month. I'm definitely confident about US launch supremacy in 2021, it's probably the safest bet on my list (except maybe the Artemis delay, which is already almost assured after the Orion issue last month).

[RedLineTrain]

* Over 100,000 Starlink terminals operating by end of 2021.   Equivalent to a billion dollar a year revenue stream.

An order of magnitude seems lost here...

[spacenut]

What is America's tonnage to orbit vs. China?  We should be way ahead.  F9/FH, Atlas V, Delta IV, all can carry more payload to orbit than most of China's rockets. 

[john smith 19]

Vulcan will launch successfully. It's ULA's future and they know it.

RL will do their first successful mid-air recovery and re-flight.  Fully expendable will remain an option however.

SCramjet advocates will continue to talk up the Russian and Chinese threat to shake funding loose.

SS will make orbit in Q4

[the_other_Doug]

NROL-44 will not fly until at least the second quarter of 2021.  The NRO will stop awarding ULA launch contracts over this, will pull at least one bird off of a future Delta launch, and will take the unprecedented step of publicly stating what they are doing, and why.

ULA will also lose a rocket and payload in flight in 2021, causing a massive shake-up in management.  It will be a close thing as to whether they will still be in business by 2022.I

Boeing, seeing what happens to ULA in 2021, will finally realize that the good old days of having the government tightly over a barrel are over, and will finally begin a real corporate restructuring aimed at saving the company.  We'll have to wait until at least 2022 to find out if they succeed.

[freddo411]

NROL-44 will not fly until at least the second quarter of 2021.  The NRO will stop awarding ULA launch contracts over this, will pull at least one bird off of a future Delta launch, and will take the unprecedented step of publicly stating what they are doing, and why.

ULA will also lose a rocket and payload in flight in 2021, causing a massive shake-up in management.  It will be a close thing as to whether they will still be in business by 2022.I

Boeing, seeing what happens to ULA in 2021, will finally realize that the good old days of having the government tightly over a barrel are over, and will finally begin a real corporate restructuring aimed at saving the company.  We'll have to wait until at least 2022 to find out if they succeed.

Wow. Bold predictions

[Hauerg]

What is America's tonnage to orbit vs. China?  We should be way ahead.  F9/FH, Atlas V, Delta IV, all can carry more payload to orbit than most of China's rockets.

But except for F9 only very few flights.

[yoram]

My predictions will be similarly reliable as last years, that is somewhat less than random chance.

SpaceX:
Falcon more and more establishes itself as a reliable workhorse like Soyuz.
9th Falcon 1st stage reuse happens on a Starlink/rideshare flight.
No attempt at 24-48h reuse turnaround
First "full price" customers start using water landed reused fairings
Musk looks another 10 years older and some serious rumor about his health.

SS doesn't make it to orbit, but has some successful flights.
First hop of Super Heavy.

NASA:
Artemis moon landing is pushed back to 2026
No NASA administrator named in 2021
SLS doesn't fly.
JWST has another delay.

Russia:
A successful test campaign for Amur's methane engine
Serious rumors about cancelling Angara due to non competitive costs
Orel doesn't make much progress

ULA:
Vulcan has a successful debut launch.

Blue Origin:
New Glenn doesn't launch
New Shepard has less than 3 flights.

China:
No successful first stage landing.

RocketLab:
No successful first stage reuse, but they're coming back in one piece.

ArianeSpace:
Ariane keeps losing market share
A6 doesn't fly
First stage reuse demonstrator in development, but no flights so far.

[marcogreco]

"Betelgeuse will go supernova this year as seen from Earth"

Actually quite unlikely. Recent strange dimming has been explained and is not looking like pre-explosion dimming. But yes, scientist agree it will explode in universal perception of time soon, that is in 100.000 years - still quite long for us humans.
So your chance of predicting it right is somewhere near 1:100.000. 

[jebbo]

"Betelgeuse will go supernova this year as seen from Earth"

Actually quite unlikely. Recent strange dimming has been explained and is not looking like pre-explosion dimming. But yes, scientist agree it will explode in universal perception of time soon, that is in 100.000 years - still quite long for us humans.
So your chance of predicting it right is somewhere near 1:100.000. 

It's probably worse than that as recent distance measurements from Coriolis mean it is probably ~25% smaller than previous estimates, and hence much longer lived.

--- Tony

[Eric Hedman]

NROL-44 will not fly until at least the second quarter of 2021.  The NRO will stop awarding ULA launch contracts over this, will pull at least one bird off of a future Delta launch, and will take the unprecedented step of publicly stating what they are doing, and why.

ULA will also lose a rocket and payload in flight in 2021, causing a massive shake-up in management.  It will be a close thing as to whether they will still be in business by 2022.I

Boeing, seeing what happens to ULA in 2021, will finally realize that the good old days of having the government tightly over a barrel are over, and will finally begin a real corporate restructuring aimed at saving the company.  We'll have to wait until at least 2022 to find out if they succeed.

I've never seen a prediction for a year proven wrong before the year even started.  Why the hate for ULA?

[the_other_Doug]

NROL-44 will not fly until at least the second quarter of 2021.  The NRO will stop awarding ULA launch contracts over this, will pull at least one bird off of a future Delta launch, and will take the unprecedented step of publicly stating what they are doing, and why.

ULA will also lose a rocket and payload in flight in 2021, causing a massive shake-up in management.  It will be a close thing as to whether they will still be in business by 2022.I

Boeing, seeing what happens to ULA in 2021, will finally realize that the good old days of having the government tightly over a barrel are over, and will finally begin a real corporate restructuring aimed at saving the company.  We'll have to wait until at least 2022 to find out if they succeed.

I've never seen a prediction for a year proven wrong before the year even started.  Why the hate for ULA?

Yeah, that got blown out of the water quickly, didn't it? 

I'm not hating on anyone, I'm looking at the evolution of the aerospace industry and the last, struggling gasps of the system that has always been based on inflated costs, and millions upon millions of dollars that went into the pockets of the aerospace industry owners, a lot of which found its way back into the pockets of the Senators who kept the billions upon billions in pork flowing through.

SpaceX has changed the paradigm permanently, and is about to shatter it into tiny little bits.  When your satellite can be one of 15 or 20 payloads going to GEO, being launched on a single Starship flight, reducing your launch cost to a few million or less, how likely are you to spend a third of a billion dollars on a single Atlas or Vulcan?  How will you justify it to the GAO?

Given those facts, you will eventually see the huge dinosaur aerospace companies start acting irrationally, as the changing of the paradigm becomes more and more apparent and their historic funding cycle (the inflated costs that go to feeding money back to the politicians who keep the business rolling in) is forced to come to an end.  Suddenly seeming incompetent at launching one's own rockets could well be a symptom of these irrational thrashings that the big companies could present before they finally understand the new paradigm and actually start adapting to it.

[Eric Hedman]

NROL-44 will not fly until at least the second quarter of 2021.  The NRO will stop awarding ULA launch contracts over this, will pull at least one bird off of a future Delta launch, and will take the unprecedented step of publicly stating what they are doing, and why.

ULA will also lose a rocket and payload in flight in 2021, causing a massive shake-up in management.  It will be a close thing as to whether they will still be in business by 2022.I

Boeing, seeing what happens to ULA in 2021, will finally realize that the good old days of having the government tightly over a barrel are over, and will finally begin a real corporate restructuring aimed at saving the company.  We'll have to wait until at least 2022 to find out if they succeed.

I've never seen a prediction for a year proven wrong before the year even started.  Why the hate for ULA?

Yeah, that got blown out of the water quickly, didn't it? 

I'm not hating on anyone, I'm looking at the evolution of the aerospace industry and the last, struggling gasps of the system that has always been based on inflated costs, and millions upon millions of dollars that went into the pockets of the aerospace industry owners, a lot of which found its way back into the pockets of the Senators who kept the billions upon billions in pork flowing through.

SpaceX has changed the paradigm permanently, and is about to shatter it into tiny little bits.  When your satellite can be one of 15 or 20 payloads going to GEO, being launched on a single Starship flight, reducing your launch cost to a few million or less, how likely are you to spend a third of a billion dollars on a single Atlas or Vulcan?  How will you justify it to the GAO?

Given those facts, you will eventually see the huge dinosaur aerospace companies start acting irrationally, as the changing of the paradigm becomes more and more apparent and their historic funding cycle (the inflated costs that go to feeding money back to the politicians who keep the business rolling in) is forced to come to an end.  Suddenly seeming incompetent at launching one's own rockets could well be a symptom of these irrational thrashings that the big companies could present before they finally understand the new paradigm and actually start adapting to it.

SpaceX has proven you can do this differently and be very successful.  Predicting how that will change the market and when isn't so easy.  It's like trying to time the stock market.  People can easily lose fortunes doing that. (I hope you didn't bet anyone on the NROL-44 prediction)  ULA still has some time to figure out a long term strategy beyond what they have publicly announced about Vulcan to compete.  But not a lot of time.  I think they will still execute what the business they have booked very well.  Their long term future outlook is why there has been speculation about them eventually merging with Blue Origin.  We'll just have to wait and see what they and other SpaceX competitors do the rest of this decade.  It makes these annual predictions fun to watch and take part in.

[hektor]

Ok here I go

Two Starship explode during a refueling test in orbit, generating a cloud of a 250 tons of Space débris, triggering the Kessler syndrome and putting an end to space flight for the next few centuries.

End of the story.

Did I get that right?