Starship Launch Attempts in 2023

[CraigLieb]

A launch attempt counts if the vehicle departs the orbital launch platform after a count down that was not aborted. This includes blowing up on the pad at or after T0 in pieces!
The local time of T0 will apply to launches on December 31 at midnight. Launch attempts from either coast count but the mission plan needs to get to orbital speed (not hop testing).
 Blowing up during fueling, or before T0 doesn’t count for the purpose of this poll.
It’s understood that More than 5 launches from Boca Chica per year would have to require modified permitting.

[DanClemmensen]

I voted for 3, but I consider this to be very optimistic. It would be unprecedented in modern LV history to launch a new LV the third time within 10 months of the first, and I don't think they will launch the first this month.

[DeimosDream]

It’s understood that More than 5 launches from Boca Chica per year would have to require modified permitting.

Reminder: It is plausible SpaceX could begin launching from Cape 39A in addition to Boca Chica to achieve more than 5 total launches without modifying the Boca Chica permitting. (I don't think it likely, just wanted to point out the possibility.)

[FishInferno]

It’s understood that More than 5 launches from Boca Chica per year would have to require modified permitting.

Reminder: It is plausible SpaceX could begin launching from Cape 39A in addition to Boca Chica to achieve more than 5 total launches without modifying the Boca Chica permitting. (I don't think it likely, just wanted to point out the possibility.)

From my understanding, Starship can't launch from 39A until after the new crew access tower/arm is completed at LC-40. NASA doesn't want to risk a Starship failure damaging crewed capability.

[DistantTemple]

7
Was a bit hasty!
Once BC launch is successful, SX will apply to increase >5. Grounds: Less noise and impact that previously feared. And Launch is safer.

LC40 dragon tower and HSF arm will be expedited but no idea of anticipated completion. However with the speed of SX construction, a tower that is only a support for the arm, and a lift (and emergency escape) should be quick! No rocket plumbing!  And of course the new tower, chopsticks, launch stand and cryo farm all have to be functioning at 39A. Possible.

So probably limited to 5 by neither of these being completed during the year.

[eriblo]

Because of how skeptical I am about Starship/Super Heavy, I voted for more than ten launch attempts.

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, but I'm thinking about a number of reasons for each scrub. Bad weather, more prelaunch checkouts needed by T-2 hours (reference to some recent F9 scrubs), fouled Range, launch abort right at T0.

Ten sounds pretty optimistic to me

In case someone reads this but not the opening post:
The wording of the poll topic might be open to interpretation but the rules clearly state that it is about the number of launches attempted and not the number of attempts at a launch...

[daedalus1]

2. April and November.

[kevinof]

3 - March(ish), July, Nov.

Gives them time between each to review and adjust.

[AmigaClone]

I would say three to five, with the chances of three launch attempts being much greater than five launches. All launches would likely be from Boca Chica.

[Orbiter]

I'm going with 3, at most. 2 seems the most likely to me.

[laszlo]

...Once BC launch is successful, SX will apply to increase >5. Grounds: Less noise and impact that previously feared. And Launch is safer.

And this is based on what?

[DeimosDream]

I imagine SpaceX has an aggressive timeline to make full use of all 5 permitted launches, but that one launch slips to 2024 so 4. Honorable mention to 3.

[deltaV]

I guess the poll options have probability roughly 20, 28, 17, 10, 7, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1, and 5 percent respectively of occurring. I voted 2 launch attempts, which is the median of this distribution.

[Alvian@IDN]

It’s understood that More than 5 launches from Boca Chica per year would have to require modified permitting.

Reminder: It is plausible SpaceX could begin launching from Cape 39A in addition to Boca Chica to achieve more than 5 total launches without modifying the Boca Chica permitting. (I don't think it likely, just wanted to point out the possibility.)

From my understanding, Starship can't launch from 39A until after the new crew access tower/arm is completed at LC-40. NASA doesn't want to risk a Starship failure damaging crewed capability.

It's 3 launches from Boca before the first 39A started. Nothing explicit about crew access arm

[mikelepage]

I voted 5, with the caveat that I'm optimistically assuming they won't blow up stage 0 (the pad). They have a permit for 5 launches, and last I checked they have 5x full stacks worth of Starship and Superheavy at various stages of construction. I don't expect instant success, instead I'm basically predicting this next year to give us the sequel to this video:

[Zed_Noir]

I voted 5, with the caveat that I'm optimistically assuming they won't blow up stage 0 (the pad). They have a permit for 5 launches, and last I checked they have 5x full stacks worth of Starship and Superheavy at various stages of construction. I don't expect instant success, instead I'm basically predicting this next year to give us the sequel to this video:

Will point out that if the Starbase test flights is successful. We could see at least a few Starship stacks launch from the LC-39A complex. If the orbital launch mount at LC-39A is ready by about the end of the year. Flight hardware availability don't appears to be an impediment, IMO.

In theory and very very optimistically a Starship stack could be launch and be recovered multiple times during a period of a week at complex LC-39A.

Likely too optimistic a scenario.

[eeergo]

In spite of all the recent work on it, I personally think it's quite unlikely B7 (and whatever is designed for it) will see an actual launch attempt. Just as prior pathfinder prototypes were just that, rather than vehicles capable of spaceflight, this one can likely serve to prove a representative shakedown of the design's appropriateness in pre-flight conditions. *Can* it be launched? Probably, at least to fulfill the definition of this thread - but they've clearly moved past the "rapid testing and prototyping" phase, for better or worse, and even if it survived all upcoming tests, including the first-ever full static fire, without relevant damage preventing it from flight-like stresses, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think it has little probability of succeeding in an actual flight profile, reducing the potential interest for an actual maiden launch with it.

However, it is also unlikely the first maiden flight (with B9 or whatever) will succeed. Any failure will require a somewhat lengthy pause, given the amount of brand-new stuff they will be testing whenever they proceed with an actual spaceflight attempt, especially now NASA is so involved (both regarding oversight and political prodding). If a failure, even if fixable, occurs already in ground testing of B7 (or later models), that will also require some relevant delays, which already keep happening now even in the face of fully satisfactory partial tests.

So my thinking based on the above is that one "launch attempt" as far as the definition of this poll goes, is likely this year, unless a test goes awfully wrong and destroys a good part of the GSE - but it's also very likely most plausible scenarios will impede a second one, successful or otherwise, until next year.

Even Musk appears to be hinting in that direction saying that "hopefully" a FH-like maiden flight will happen this year:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1622668136834113563

[su27k]

Hilarious that people hang on to Elon's every word when it fits their world view, and completely ignore him when it doesn't.

[eeergo]

No hilarity involved: it can just be considered the baseline for the "most optimistic estimate possible" at any given time; a goodwill attempt to base one's view, however critical, on the information provided by the party with the most vested interest, taken at face value.

Not interested in bickering, but you (and many others, of course, as it's a standard dialectic strategy) do it all the times in other threads right in this forum, by posting sources you diametrically disagree with or just usually ignore, in order to support the arguments that "support your worldview".

[daedalus1]

Try not to make the question more complicated than it is.
It's simply how many and your brief reasoning (optional).
At the end of the year each contributer will either be correct or not correct,  simple.