Reuse milestones

[Robotbeat]

By my count, there have been 146 Falcon 9 Booster reflights.

This is more than the 129 Shuttle reflights

Falcon 9 is the most reused rocket.   It has done this in a bit over 7 years, compared to the shuttle 's 30 years.

Fan as I am, still though:
- F9 reuse is first stage, Shuttle was second so not really comparable.
- Per vehicle, there's still some catching up to do, even if it were comparable.

Per $ spent though, I think F9 is doing pretty well

The reason they haven’t done as many flights per airframe as Shuttle, though, is partly because they have a huge booster fleet. I think the fact that SpaceX has a huge fleet of F9 boosters because they’re also pretty cheap counts as a win. I don’t see any obvious technical thing preventing each booster from flying just as many times as each orbiter did, except that the fleet of boosters is huge (which again is a point in favor of F9 enabled by the low upfront cost, not against it) and they’re likely going to transition most launches to Starship before reaching 40 launches per booster.

[StarshipTrooper]

That's quite the fleet of boosters.   

SpaceX clearly has:
* a regular 2 month refurb cadence (launch to launch)
* a large enough booster fleet,  recovery fleet and pads
* a sufficient second stage production line cadence

These add up to the ability to launch at least once per week on a regular sustained basis

The stated goal for the upcoming year is 100 launches. So approximately twice a week. I wonder what needs to expand to allow an almost doubling of cadence?

[Robotbeat]

A consistent max launch rate from all 3 launch sites would do it. So more launches from Vandenberg, likely.

[DanClemmensen]

How much additional pad time does each FH launch take? Apparently, LC-39A must be reconfigured from F9 to FH and then reconfigured back to F9. 2022 launches were:
      30  CCSFS, SLC-40
      18  KSC, LC-39A
      13  VSFB, SLC-4E

For example using made-up numbers, if a conversion takes an extra week and the usual pad turnaround is about two weeks, then an FH will count as two F9s for pad occupancy. There are four FH on the 2023 manifest, so they will need to account for the equivalent of roughly 4 additional F9 launched of pad occupancy time.

Of course Elon's "100 launches" probably include 5 SS from Boca Chica.

[Robotbeat]

They could also potentially do 2 Falcon Heavies back to back at the Cape (or close to it, as there’s not necessarily enough room in the HIF for two), which may take less conversion time.

[meekGee]

By my count, there have been 146 Falcon 9 Booster reflights.

This is more than the 129 Shuttle reflights

Falcon 9 is the most reused rocket.   It has done this in a bit over 7 years, compared to the shuttle 's 30 years.

Fan as I am, still though:
- F9 reuse is first stage, Shuttle was second so not really comparable.
- Per vehicle, there's still some catching up to do, even if it were comparable.

Per $ spent though, I think F9 is doing pretty well

The reason they haven’t done as many flights per airframe as Shuttle, though, is partly because they have a huge booster fleet. I think the fact that SpaceX has a huge fleet of F9 boosters because they’re also pretty cheap counts as a win. I don’t see any obvious technical thing preventing each booster from flying just as many times as each orbiter did, except that the fleet of boosters is huge (which again is a point in favor of F9 enabled by the low upfront cost, not against it) and they’re likely going to transition most launches to Starship before reaching 40 launches per booster.

Agreed.  They just haven't yet, and the discussion was about milestones achieved.

And probably F9 will retire without breaking STS records, unless you normalize per $...

Starship will though, by orders of magnitude, well within the decade.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

With the successful re-flights of FH side boosters on USSF-67, here’s are the current booster reuse stats:

https://twitter.com/_rykllan/status/1614867337982754817

Statistics of #SpaceX's #Falcon9 & #FalconHeavy booster missions as of Jan 15, 2023

[wannamoonbase]

updated Jan 8
Spaceflight Now
Starlink 2-6
Late January
SLC-4E

Looks like they might just be able to squeeze in 3 Starlink missions at all 3 pads.  If 5-2, 2-6, and 5-3 all launch in January, that would put them on pace for 97 missions

I think the rolling 'On pace for X launches in 2023' is going to be one of the most interesting things to follow this year.

Starship is the big one of course, but 100 F9 flights on it's own would be a revolution.

[DanClemmensen]

updated Jan 8
Spaceflight Now
Starlink 2-6
Late January
SLC-4E

Looks like they might just be able to squeeze in 3 Starlink missions at all 3 pads.  If 5-2, 2-6, and 5-3 all launch in January, that would put them on pace for 97 missions

I think the rolling 'On pace for X launches in 2023' is going to be one of the most interesting things to follow this year.

Starship is the big one of course, but 100 F9 flights on it's own would be a revolution.

I think the actual Elon quote was for "100 launches", not 100 F9 launches. 100 launches may include 5 Starship launches from Boca Chica, and also includes FH launches, which you may or may not call "F9 launches".

Rumor has it that SpaceX only has authorization for 60 launches from Florida (KSC+CCSFS). 100 launches would therefore require 35 from Vandenberg, and this is highly unlikely.   We would expect to see SpaceX request permission for more Florida launches. The Florida range has reported that it expects to support 87 launches this year for all rockets. If SpaceX launches more than 60 of them The other launch companies begin to be squeezed out.

[abaddon]

The Florida range has reported that it expects to support 87 launches this year for all rockets. If SpaceX launches more than 60 of them The other launch companies begin to be squeezed out.

Seems unlikely.  ULA has a big Vulcan manifest but is likely to get one or maybe two launches this year, let's call it two.  They also have four Atlas V launches, plus a bunch of Atlas V Kuiper launches that are unlikely to contribute much if anything this year.  Let's be generous and say they get two Kuiper launches in this year, so call that six Atlas Vs.  Throw in one Delta IV Heavy and you have a reasonable estimate of a maximum of nine launches from ULA this year.  That leaves the Terran 1 maiden flight to bring us to 10, and maybe one extra Terran 1 launch if all goes well so that would take us to 11.  That's a pretty optimistic view, a more conservative view would have zero Kuiper launches this year, one Vulcan launch, one Terran launch, so more in the range of seven total non-SpaceX flights from Florida.

It's likely that SpaceX can't pull off more than 60 launches from Florida for a variety of other reasons, so I think it's unlikely to happen anyway.  If they somehow did, it doesn't seem like other launches would be "squeezed out" as there really aren't much in the way of other launches this year.   In fact, it's much more likely that protracted maiden launch campaigns for Terran 1 and Vulcan (as well as the possibility of Delta IV Heavy being a pad queen as we have seen in the past) squeeze SpaceX down below the 60 launch threshold than the other way around.

[alugobi]

Musk said it, and they're probably not going to hit that number, so you have two reasons for the inevitable gratuitous criticism that's surely to follow at year's end.

[crandles57]

Looks like they might just be able to squeeze in 3 Starlink missions at all 3 pads.  If 5-2, 2-6, and 5-3 all launch in January, that would put them on pace for 97 missions

How did you work out 97?
8*12=96
8/31*365=94

Edit: maybe it was 8/4.3*52?

[DanClemmensen]

The Florida range has reported that it expects to support 87 launches this year for all rockets. If SpaceX launches more than 60 of them The other launch companies begin to be squeezed out.

Seems unlikely.  ULA has a big Vulcan manifest but is likely to get one or maybe two launches this year, let's call it two.  They also have four Atlas V launches, plus a bunch of Atlas V Kuiper launches that are unlikely to contribute much if anything this year.  Let's be generous and say they get two Kuiper launches in this year, so call that six Atlas Vs.  Throw in one Delta IV Heavy and you have a reasonable estimate of a maximum of nine launches from ULA this year.  That leaves the Terran 1 maiden flight to bring us to 10, and maybe one extra Terran 1 launch if all goes well so that would take us to 11.  That's a pretty optimistic view, a more conservative view would have zero Kuiper launches this year, one Vulcan launch, one Terran launch, so more in the range of seven total non-SpaceX flights from Florida.

It's likely that SpaceX can't pull off more than 60 launches from Florida for a variety of other reasons, so I think it's unlikely to happen anyway.  If they somehow did, it doesn't seem like other launches would be "squeezed out" as there really aren't much in the way of other launches this year.   In fact, it's much more likely that protracted maiden launch campaigns for Terran 1 and Vulcan (as well as the possibility of Delta IV Heavy being a pad queen as we have seen in the past) squeeze SpaceX down below the 60 launch threshold than the other way around.

Thanks! By your math, the range would expect 11 non-SpaceX launches, so be can naively compute that they expect 76 SpaceX launches and by inference SpaceX will get permission for those extra 16 launches. Please note that this is based on basically nothing except a single statement from the range officer plus lots of uninformed speculation by me. Now we can throw in some extreme optimism and assume 5 from BC. This would still require 19 from Vandenberg, which still seems aggressive: a launch every 19 days on average.

This all seems like an Elon fantasy, but who knows? 61 launches in 2022 seemed unreachable.

How will we know if/when SpaceX gets permission for the extra 16 Florida launches? If I recall correctly the 60-launch limit was in a document filed with the FAA. If so, I hope a competent NSF denizen will notice and tell us if a new filing occurs.

[crandles57]

Thanks! By your math, the range would expect 11 non-SpaceX launches, so be can naively compute that they expect 76 SpaceX launches and by inference SpaceX will get permission for those extra 16 launches. Please note that this is based on basically nothing except a single statement from the range officer plus lots of uninformed speculation by me. Now we can throw in some extreme optimism and assume 5 from BC. This would still require 19 from Vandenberg, which still seems aggressive: a launch every 19 days on average.

This all seems like an Elon fantasy, but who knows? 61 launches in 2022 seemed unreachable.

How will we know if/when SpaceX gets permission for the extra 16 Florida launches? If I recall correctly the 60-launch limit was in a document filed with the FAA. If so, I hope a competent NSF denizen will notice and tell us if a new filing occurs.

Well the Feb 2020 environmental assessment did its computations with 60 F9 and 10 FH. So if they do 5 FH then it isn't clear whether they are allowed 60 F9 plus 5FH or if they can say F9 is less emissions etc than FH so they can do 65 F9 plus 5FH.
https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/space/environmental/nepa_docs/SpaceX_Falcon_Program_Final_EA_and_FONSI.pdf
So it is maybe only 11 extra and maybe only 6 extra.

I am not certain how closely this is bound into getting their launch licences. Basically I have no idea if it is simple for SpaceX to present an argument basically saying more launches = more satellites and mass launched to orbit = more useful stuff and therefore more benefits to society so if it was worth it before to do lower number, it is still worth it to do more launches and get this accepted so they continue to get their launch licences.

If 70 launches from Florida didn't look like significant emissions that needed further investigation, then the numbers for 80 launches probably don't look like significantly more.

[DanClemmensen]

Thanks! By your math, the range would expect 11 non-SpaceX launches, so be can naively compute that they expect 76 SpaceX launches and by inference SpaceX will get permission for those extra 16 launches. Please note that this is based on basically nothing except a single statement from the range officer plus lots of uninformed speculation by me. Now we can throw in some extreme optimism and assume 5 from BC. This would still require 19 from Vandenberg, which still seems aggressive: a launch every 19 days on average.

This all seems like an Elon fantasy, but who knows? 61 launches in 2022 seemed unreachable.

How will we know if/when SpaceX gets permission for the extra 16 Florida launches? If I recall correctly the 60-launch limit was in a document filed with the FAA. If so, I hope a competent NSF denizen will notice and tell us if a new filing occurs.

Well the Feb 2020 environmental assessment did its computations with 60 F9 and 10 FH. So if they do 5 FH then it isn't clear whether they are allowed 60 F9 plus 5FH or if they can say F9 is less emissions etc than FH so they can do 65 F9 plus 5FH.
https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/space/environmental/nepa_docs/SpaceX_Falcon_Program_Final_EA_and_FONSI.pdf
So it is maybe only 11 extra and maybe only 6 extra.

I am not certain how closely this is bound into getting their launch licences. Basically I have no idea if it is simple for SpaceX to present an argument basically saying more launches = more satellites and mass launched to orbit = more useful stuff and therefore more benefits to society so if it was worth it before to do lower number, it is still worth it to do more launches and get this accepted so they continue to get their launch licences.

If 70 launches from Florida didn't look like significant emissions that needed further investigation, then the numbers for 80 launches probably don't look like significantly more.

SpaceX: "Gee officer, I figured that one FH is equivalent to three F9 boosters, so that's 5 FH plus 75 F9, right?"
EPA: "Tell it to the judge!"

More seriously, It they must re-open the EA, a lot of knee-jerk SpaceX haters get a chance to raise objections.

[crandles57]

SpaceX: "Gee officer, I figured that one FH is equivalent to three F9 boosters, so that's 5 FH plus 75 F9, right?"
EPA: "Tell it to the judge!"

More seriously, It they must re-open the EA, a lot of knee-jerk SpaceX haters get a chance to raise objections.

 
Yeah but ... they haven't launched it, just asked for a launch licence for the 61st F9 launch and if they then get that launch licence then launch is approved and licenced by the government? 

[litton4]

Are they up to 200 F9 launches yet?

or would the 200 figure that has been mentioned recently include FH, so 195? F9 + 5 FH?

[rpapo]

Are they up to 200 F9 launches yet?

or would the 200 figure that has been mentioned recently include FH, so 195? F9 + 5 FH?

FWIW, Wikipedia says the next launch will be #200.  That includes FH, but not F1.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Actually the next F9 launch is the 200th F9 launch excluding FH. But that includes the Dragon IFA test, so need another launch after that for 200 F9 orbital launches (and another after that for 200 successes, given the CRS-7 failure).

To get back on topic, the last 95 booster landing attempts have all been successful (FH flights count as two, as centre cores were deliberately expended). So next month will hopefully see the 100th consecutive successful booster landing.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

A nice snapshot of the F9 booster fleet now and two years ago

https://twitter.com/_rykllan/status/1627244723118145537

2 years difference