POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2014

[kch]

I suggest 5 separate polls:

How many F9 and F9R flights in 2015

How many FH flights in 2015

How many recovered cores in 2015 (nothing that does not stand upright for at least 60 seconds after landing counts as recovered)

How many reflown cores in 2015

How many D2's flown (suborbital or orbital) in 2015

In a bid to increase recursion , how about we guess how many polls will be in 2015?  or should we poll about that question?

"I never metapoll I didn't like ..." -- Will Rogers' cousin Buck

[RotoSequence]

For what it's worth, the pessimist in me says "The difference between 2013 and 2014, plus the number launched in 2014." So, 9 to 11.

[cro-magnon gramps]

From the OP:

Current 2014 SpaceX Flights Scheduled (According to Salo's Thread)
     
NET January - Thaicom 6 - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
February 22 - Dragon SpX-3 (CRS3), Hermes 2, LMRSat, TechCube 1, All-Star (THEIA) - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
NET March - Orbcomm G2 (x8) - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
April - AsiaSat 8 - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
May - AsiaSat 6 (Thaicom 7) - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
June 6 - Dragon SpX-4 (CRS4) - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
NET 2nd quarter - Demo Flight - Falcon Heavy - Vandenberg SLC-4E
September 12 - Dragon SpX-5 (CRS5) - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
December 5 - Dragon SpX-6 (CRS6) - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
December - Turkmensat - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40 (or Ariane 5 ECA)
NET December - Orbcomm G2 (x9) - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40
TBD - Space Systems/Loral payload - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Canaveral SLC-40

This says POTENTIAL 12 flights for 2014; and it looks like there MIGHT be 7.
I don't know what the potential is for 2015, but whatever it is, a bit better than
50% seems to be the middle mark to aim for. ie if 16, then go with 9-10 as the
middle...
   or has that muddled up the waters for the statisticians in here ;-)
of which I am NOT one of!!

Gramps

[friendly3]

From your list they didn't launch the 2nd Orbcomm G2, Turkmensat and Space Systems/Loral payloads because they are NOT available, not because they were unable to. And they moved Falcon Heavy to Pad 39A.

[cro-magnon gramps]

From your list they didn't launch the 2nd Orbcomm G2, Turkmensat and Space Systems/Loral payloads because they are NOT available, not because they were unable to. And they moved Falcon Heavy to Pad 39A.

That's the point of my post (didn't make it clear that it wasn't MY list; corrected  ) that things happen, whether internal or external. And for 2014 that meant 5, possibly 6 flights, don't make it. 

[friendly3]

Well, that means the customers (at least some of them) didn't think SpaceX would be ready to launch their payloads, I don't think that will be anymore the case in the future.

[francesco nicoli]

If I recall well, we are at 7 SpaceX flights now with a nr 8 coming soon, right?

it looks like Nsf collective intelligence work decently, after all!

[Proponent]

Is there any way to get more poll options? It'd be nice to get a smooth distribution to play around with for statistical analysis. I don't like truncating the tails of the distribution too short just because "most" people aren't going to vote for them.

How about a poll in which each response is a distribution of likelihoods.  Each participant would indicate the likelihood he assigns to various numbers of launches.  This would be done in a format that would make scoring easy (though not automatic: someone would have to tabulate the results).  Just as an example, suppose I think there's 10% of 6 flights, 25% for each of 7-9, 15% for 10 and 5% for 11.  Then my entry might be

Proponent: 6 10 25 25 25 15 5

<Optional rationale for my likelihood distribution>

The first field is my screen name, terminated by a colon so as to gracefully cope with multi-word screen names.  The second field is the minimum number of flights (6) to which I assign a non-zero likelihood, and the remaining numbers are my likelihoods for 6, 7, 8, etc. flights.

[e of pi]

If I recall well, we are at 7 SpaceX flights now with a nr 8 coming soon, right?

it looks like Nsf collective intelligence work decently, after all!

Six with #7 coming.

[Kaputnik]

People muttering about January launch for CRS 5, which leaves us at 6 for the year. It might be short of what we were hoping for, but it's better than six and a failure, for sure.

(And it's still one more than I predicted...)

[cro-magnon gramps]

People muttering about January launch for CRS 5, which leaves us at 6 for the year. It might be short of what we were hoping for, but it's better than six and a failure, for sure.

(And it's still one more than I predicted...)

It is bang on what I "guessed"at last winter.. I would have been happy to be proved wrong, with 7, or even 9.. but it doesn't seem to be in the cards...
 Last year this time, if you remember, Obcomm was delayed until early into 2014... so a bit of de je vue (sp) (to lazy or drunk to look it up)
 I don't look at it as a failure, but as a step in the right direction. being careful to not step on the cow paddies and slip further... (bit of ancient experience speaking there) Well done SpaceX to reach 6 firm successful launches this year... it has been a difficult year, but you did it... never to be ashamed or disappointed in your accomplishments... we are proud of you and still have your back... Merry Christmas and may next year be your best ever!!!

Cheers
    Gramps 

[R.Simko]

OMG, no delay. I was betting on 7.   

[Lee Jay]

Jeff Foust quotes Shotwell as maintaining 9 more launches scheduled for this year, despite CRS-3 delay. Thats exactly one a month from here on out. Also quotes 15-17 for next year, quite a ramp up.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/451035641644478465

I've said it before several times.  SpaceX's problem is over-promising, not under-delivering.  Looks like they'll have 6 flights this year (which also means I got it right two years in a row unless they squeeze CRS-4 in), which is quite respectable since they had 3 last year and had all the other successes on other fronts related to reusability this year.  But they can't seem to stop saying they're going to do way more than they actually end up doing.

They did 5 more after the above tweet, not 9.  Several members responded even right at the time of the tweet that there was no way they'd accomplish those 9.  And they were right.

So, SpaceX, congratulations on a really great year!  And shame on you for continually overly-optimistic predictions.

[cro-magnon gramps]

No shame in being optimistic, other than disappointing people who hope or believe in the omnipotence of Mr Musk... SpaceX done good, in difficult circumstances... whether it is their fault or the fault of others, they still doubled their launches over the previous year, and for that I am more than willing to give them a round of applause... let's be kind and generous in our attitude to others, especially at this time of year... January 1st is a new slate, and a new series of launch manifest... so for all the launch providers that have launches this coming year, where ever you may be, may your stars be in the ascendant and may your failures be few..
  Gramps...

damn spell check ;O spelling mistake

[WHAP]

I think I'm 3 for 3 (years) on predictions.

[mme]

I think I'm 3 for 3 (years) on predictions.

Awesome.  Please stop being such a pessimist! 

[Rocket Science]

Remember we all got a "free bee" with a carry-over from last year according to tigerade....

[WHAP]

I think I'm 3 for 3 (years) on predictions.

Awesome.  Please stop being such a pessimist! 

The number of launches per year isn't dependent on my guesses...

[woods170]

I've said it before several times.  SpaceX's problem is over-promising

That's a fact. Seriously; both Elon and Gwynne could do with a healthy reality check.

And with CRS-5 now firmly heading into January (per Chris' latest article) the tally for 2014 stands at six. Exactly what I predicted.

Now, where is that 2015 prediction thread?

[savuporo]

That's a fact. Seriously; both Elon and Gwynne could do with a healthy reality check.

That would be boring. I want to hear their back to back predictions on which year is that  they plan to break the world launch rate record.