POLL: Number of SpaceX orbital flights in 2017

[Lar]

Number of SpaceX orbital flight attempts in 2017

News flash: There is a poll for 2018. Here's the link 
2018: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43942.0

News flash: for those of you that can't get enough of polls, there are three new ones just for 2H 2017

Overall: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43271.0
Vandy:   http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43274.0
Cape:    http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43275.0

Enjoy! (Lar, 2 July 2017)

Back by popular demand! (well, one guy asked me for it)... it's your chance to give us your best guess on how many orbital flight attempts SpaceX will have next year. Please read this post carefully, all the way to the bottom. The rules have been clarified (I used more colors, that's gotta help) and simplified (not really) and we have even more historical data for you to pore over than before. We had over 400 voters last year and there wasn't even a prize! Sadly, no prize this year either. But you want to vote anyway.

Companion poll for core recoveries in 2017:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41825.0

Prior Results

Number of SpaceX flights in 2016 poll thread (actual total: 8,
      2 Dragons: CRS-8, and CRS 9
      6 non Dragon: Jason-3, SES-9, JCSAT-14, Thaicom 8, Eutelsat 117 West B/ABS-2A, JCSAT-16
      1 non Dragon pad anomaly: AMOS-6 )
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39071.0

Companion poll for core recoveries in 2016: (actual total: 5 successes of 8 tries)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39219.0


Number of SpaceX flights in 2015 poll thread (actual total: 7,
        3 Dragons: CRS-5, CRS-6, and CRS-7 (failed),
        3 non Dragon: DSCOVR, ABS-3A/Eutelsat 115 West B, TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSAT )
        PLUS ORBCOMM-2 RTF which happened after the 2016 poll started and featured the first successful first stage landing.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36377.0

Number of SpaceX flights in 2014 poll thread (actual total: 6, 2 Dragons: CRS-3, and CRS-4)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33571.0

Number of SpaceX flights in 2013 poll thread (actual total: 3, 1 Dragon: CRS-2)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30684.0

Number of SpaceX flights in 2012 poll thread (actual total: 2, 2 Dragons: C2+ and CRS-1)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27858.0

References

Totals: F9  from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_launches#Launch_history_and_manifest
           Dragon from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_(spacecraft)#List_of_Dragon_missions
Salo's US Flight Schedule
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=8184.0

SpaceX Official Flight Manifest
http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

Anik's Schedule of ISS flight events
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=61.0

NASA's Consolidated Launch Schedule
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html

Current 2017 SpaceX Flights Scheduled

(According to Salo's Thread with modification, and my editorial comments, and I won't update it post 1 Jan... if I bobbled something let me know)

NET December 16, 2016 early January - Iridium Next Flight 1 (x10), MicroSat-1a, MicroSat-1b - Falcon 9-030 - Vandenberg SLC-4E - 20:36
NET January 8 - Echostar 23 - Falcon 9-031 -  Kennedy LC-39A
NET January 22 - Dragon SpX-10 (CRS-10), SAGE-III, SAGE NVP, STP-H5/ISEM - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A (or spring)
NET February - SES-10 - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A
March - NROL-76 - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A
NET March - Dragon SpX-11 (CRS-11), ROSA, MUSES, NICER - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A
NET 1st quarter - Iridium Next Flight 2 (x10), MicroSat 1c, MicroSat 1d (or MicroSat 1a, MicroSat 1b) - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E
NET 1st quarter - KoreaSat 5A/Mugungwha 5A - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A
NET 1st half quarter- Inmarsat 5 F4 - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A/Canaveral SLC-40
1st half - SES-11 (EchoStar 105) - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40 (TBD)
1st half (TBD) - BulgariaSat 1 - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40 (TBD)
NET 2nd quarter - Intelsat 35e - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40 (TBD)
NET 2nd quarter - Iridium Next Flight 3 (x10) - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E
June 1 - Dragon SpX-12 (CRS-12), CREAM - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A 
midyear - Demo Flight (dummy payload, ballast) - Falcon Heavy - Kennedy LC-39A
August - Dragon v2 (unmanned test) (SpX-DM1)- Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A (or 2018)
September 13 - Dragon SpX-13 (CRS-13), ASIM, TSIS, MISSE-FF - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A
3rd quarter - SES-16/GovSat-1 - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40
3rd quarter - Es’hail 2 - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40
3rd quarter - STP-02: DSX, COSMIC-2A (equatorial): FORMOSAT 7A/7B/7C/7D/7E/7F, GPIM, OTB 1, FalconSat 6, NPSat 1, Oculus-ASR, Prox 1, LightSail B, ARMADILLO, FalconSat 7, TBEx A, TBEx B, Prometheus 2-1, Prometheus 2-2, Prometheus 2-3, Prometheus 2-4, Prometheus 2-5, Prometheus 2-6, Prometheus 2-7, Prometheus 2-8, PSat 2, BRICSat 1, BRICSat 2, TEPCE 1, TEPCE 2, CP 9 (LEO), StangSat, DOTSI, CNGB, Ballast - Falcon Heavy - Kennedy LC-39A
NET 3rd quarter - Iridium Next Flight 4 (x10) - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E
2nd half - SES-14 - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40 (or 4th quarter)
NET 2nd half - Europasat (HellasSat-3) - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A (or Proton Ariane 5)
4th quarter -  ORS-6 (COWVR, WSGF), "2017 Sun Synch Express"/SHERPA: SpaceIL lunar lander, Eu:CROPIS, ICEYE-1 (TBC), BlackSky Global 1, BlackSky Global 2, BlackSky Global 3, BlackSky Global 4, STPSat-5,  SkySat (xTBD) + over 13 sats - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E
NET 4th quarter - Iridium Next Flight 5 (x10) - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E
October - SAOCOM-1A - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E 
late November - Early December - Hispasat 30W-6 (1F) Amazonas-5 - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40  (or 2018)
November - Dragon v2 (manned test) (SpX-DM2) - Falcon 9 - Kennedy LC-39A (or 2018)
December 16 - Bangabandhu-1 - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40
NET December 20 - TESS (Astro EX-1) - Falcon 9 - Canaveral SLC-40 (or January 2018)
December - GRACE-FO 1, GRACE-FO 2, Iridium Next (x5) - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E (or January NLT February 2018)
TBD - FORMOSAT 5, SHERPA SSO: eXCITe (PTB 1), Blacksky Global Pathfinder 2, Flock-2c (x56), Lemur-2 (x8), Corvus-BC 3, ICE-Cap, PropCube 2, Arkyd-6A, CNUSail 1, KAUSAT 5, SIGMA (KHUSAT 3), CANYVAL-X 1, CANYVAL-X 2, STEP Cube Lab, EcAMSat, ISARA, OCSD B, OCSD C, Fox 1C, Fox 1D, Nayif 1, skCUBE, ITASAT 1, Aalto 1, DIDO 1, 3Cat 1, LMPC (AeroCube 9), ROBUSTA 1B, SUCHAI - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E
TBD - PSN-6, U.S. government satellite - Falcon 9 - TBD

piggybacked:
TBD - Kestrel Eye 1 - Falcon 9/SSPS - TBD

(Last year's list as of the time of the poll, for reference)

NET January   4   17 - Jason-3 - Falcon 9 v1.1 - Vandenberg SLC-4E - 18:42:18 (or 1st half of January (TBD))
mid-January (TBD) - SES-9 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40 (or December 27, 2015)
NET January 3 8 February 7 - Dragon SpX-8 (CRS8), BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40 - 21:01 ~08:30
March 21 - Dragon SpX-9 (CRS9) - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40 ~04:00
NET 1st quarter - Eutelsat 117 West B (Satmex 9), ABS 2A - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
NET 1st quarter - JCSat-14 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
spring - FORMOSAT 5, SHERPA SSO: Arkyd-6, CNUSail 1, KAUSAT 5, SIGMA, CANYVAL-X 1, CANYVAL-X 2, STEP Cube Lab, EcAMSat, ISARA, CubeSats - Falcon 9 FT - Vandenberg SLC-4E
May - Demo Flight - Falcon Heavy - Kennedy LC-39A
June 10 - Dragon SpX-10 (CRS10) - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
1st half - JCSat-16 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
midyear - AMOS 6 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
August 15- Dragon SpX-11 (CRS11) - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
August - NEXT contract: 3U-CubeSat (x3) - GOLauncher-2 - TBD  ? NOT a Falcon
NET August - Iridium Next Flight 1 (x10) - Falcon 9 FT - Vandenberg SLC-4E
2nd half - SES-10 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
2nd half - SES-11 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
October - STP-02: DSX, COSMIC-2A (equatorial): FORMOSAT 7A/7B/7C/7D/7E/7F, GPIM, OTB, FalconSat 6, NPSat 1, Oculus-ASR, Prox 1, LightSail B, Cubesats, Ballast - Falcon Heavy - Kennedy LC-39A (or 2017)
NET October - Iridium Next Flight 2 (x10) - Falcon 9 FT - Vandenberg SLC-4E
4th quarter - Dragon SpX-12 (CRS12) - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
4th quarter - Es’hail 2 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
4th quarter - KoreaSat 5A/Mugungwha 5A - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
4th quarter - ViaSat-2 - Falcon Heavy - Kennedy LC-39A (or Ariane 5)
4th quarter - 30+ cubesats, tubesats - NEPTUNE N5 - Tonga NOT a Falcon
November - SAOCOM-1A, Itasat-1 - Falcon 9 FT- Vandenberg SLC-4E
NET December - Iridium Next Flight 3 (x10) - Falcon 9 FT- Vandenberg SLC-4E
NET December - Dragon v2 (unmanned test) (SpX-DM1)- Falcon 9 FT - Kennedy LC-39A
late - Inmarsat 5 F4 - Falcon Heavy - Kennedy LC-39A
late - Europasat/HellasSat-3 - Falcon Heavy - Kennedy LC-39A (or NLT 1st quarter 2017)
late - Thaicom 8 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
late - STPSat-5 - TBD - TBD  ?
TBD - DragonLab-1 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40
TBD - BulgariaSat 1 - Falcon 9 FT - Canaveral SLC-40

Poll Rules
- Poll closes same time as last year, around Jan 19.
- This allows time for those out of town during the holidays
- This also prevents the thread from going on so long to make the poll unfair to early voters.
- Early voters don't know if certain launches happen or don't... take that into account when voting.
- No do-overs... I can't change anyone's vote without closing and reopening, and it wouldn't be fair anyway
- No late votes... I am not reopening the poll because you forgot. You can still post a rationale if you want.
- Please PM me with any questions/comments/concerns.  I've done what I can to make this orderly.
- UTC time is considered for any launches on Dec 31st (of either 2015 or 2016). T-0 time determines what year the launch was in.

Guidelines for "Number of Launches" thread/poll
A "launch" in this case means:
- The liftoff of a launch vehicle from the pad, with a mission that includes the objectives of second stage cutoff and delivering a payload to orbit.  (this includes earth orbits and direct injection to other orbits such as solar, etc. It also, to forestall nitpicking, includes hyperbolic trajectories... what it doesn't include is any trajectory that (is intended to) return to earth without having performed at least one complete orbit of Earth)
- The launch does not have to "succeed".. if the engines fire with intent to launch, that's enough, unless the vehicle does not move at all, and survives so another attempt can be tried
- This includes any CRS Dragon missions, Commsats, mass simulators, interplanetary missions, etc
- Scrubs and static fires do not count.
- Suborbital tests and missions DO NOT count.
- Suborbital core returns, should any happen, also DO NOT count (inasmuch as they are part of some other mission, and there is a separate poll for core returns)
- Launch abort tests also DO NOT count.
- Any confusion on this, please send me a PM before posting.
- There might be a few tiny edge cases that still don't clearly bin to "launch" or "not launch" ... in that case I will, in my Imperial Magisty, make the call.

Practical Examples
- CRS-7 COUNTED.
- Amos-6 DID NOT COUNT.
- An FH launch WILL COUNT as one launch, not three, obviously.
- Grasshopper and F9R-suborbital tests DID NOT COUNT.
- Equivalent ITS suborbital tests WILL NOT COUNT.
- The Dragon Pad Abort Test (May 6, 2015) DID NOT COUNT.
- The Dragon In-Flight Abort Test WILL NOT COUNT.
- However, a failed commercial crew launch that results in a Dragon abort WILL COUNT if the launch otherwise counts (see CRS-7 vs AMOS-6.)


Rationale for "Number of Launches" thread
The original purpose of this thread was to get an intelligent discussion going on the number of launches that would actually take place.  At the beginning of 2012 and 2013, it was pretty unclear how many launches would take place those respective years. This was even true somewhat for 2014... as the 2014 poll makes clear. But collectively we did not do too bad...  On 2015 SpaceX was tracking to make something fairly close to our consensus until CRS-7 set them back... Again, in 2016, SpaceX was tracking to make pretty close to our consensus until AMOS-6 set them back... SpaceX has aggressive plans for 2017 too.

NOTE: We're interested in your rationale, but not in "should I vote yet" and not in "this poll is flawed because..."... those posts might just get trimmed.. Not going to limit it to one post per person at this time, but if there is too much trivial back and forth we might.

[Bubbinski]

I'm going conservative again this year. SpaceX has still not gotten to double digits in launches yet (in a year) but they've been getting closer. I say they finally, finally, barely make double digits this year with 10 orbital launches. By end of year they'll finally be positioned for a much higher launch cadence.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

My 21-25 vote is based on 3 launches from LC-39A every 2 months and 7/8 flights from VAFB. The real question is the launch rate on LC-39A not the 7 or 8 flights from VAFB. For those the payloads will be ready and the problem is LV availability. On tap for LC-39A is at least 1 FH, 4 CRS, at least 1 CC, and ~12 commercial (4 of which are from those delayed from 2016). At 7 VAFB 5 gov, 1 FH, and at least 5 commercial GTO's the number is 21.

[Orbiter]

Going with 10.

6 from LC39A, 4 from VAFB. No Falcon Heavy, either.

[CraigLieb]

So I guessed 16 last year and they launched 8. Therefore, using the scientific method, I am hoping for 20 flights this year, so I picked 10 for the poll.

[Lar]

I went 16 launches.

They demonstrated cadence at the Cape before the mishap, if they can quickly get back to that cadence, and propagate that to Vandy, 16 won't be hard at all... as long as there isn't another mishap.  Of that I think two will be FH.  So that's 14+6 first stages, and I think 80% recovery of those is not unreasonable, so I went 16 recovered stages too.

[Barrie]

Yeah, my optimism and my pessimism duked it out for a while, then agreed on 15 - about half of Salo's schedule, but with a sympathy vote for an odd number, because I feel sorry for them.

[Lar]

Bother, I forgot that I wanted to vote for an odd number... 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I went with 15 too. SpaceX we're doing one a month for 10 months up to September's failure so that's definitely a sustainable rate. At some point (mid?) next year they'll finally have 3 operational pads so a bit more than one per month over the course of the year seems reasonable.
I refuse to lower my guess by making any adjustment for further failures, I want to believe! 

[RotoSequence]

Going with twelve; I expect a few holdups and an abundance of caution will prevent them from sustaining the cadence of 2016 prior to the AMOS-6 explosion.

[ZachS09]

Went with 10 missions because obviously, there will be delays that all of you will be unaware of at first until SpaceX announces them. I believe one of the 10 will include the demo flight of the Falcon Heavy.

[Poole Amateur]

Gone for 16. They have a big backlog to work through and I like to think they can achieve that number without making any mistakes and blow more stuff up. If they can reuse some cores without having to rebuild them too much, then perhaps they can make 16.

Would be great if they do, really don't want another bang.

[cro-magnon gramps]

going conservative 

6 from Pad 39a one will be FH late in the year, and another will be the Dragon 2 test, so only 4 satellite/CSR launches
2 from Pad 40 late in the year, satellite/CSR
4 from Vandenberg
and to make it ODD a Christmas Present from Brownsville 1 for Nomadd

so 13 total...
I think that's enough to keep things interesting, more and some people might get bored

[Earendil]

Went with 15, as:

1. Fingers crossed, there will be no further major mishaps
2. I believe they should have worked most design-based issues by now.
2. They will do overall more than 1 per month, but not as far as 2 per month..


Overall 2016 was a bad year for me too, optimistic for 2017 though

[nacnud]

Lucky 13, no rationale just lucky 13.

Can anyone decipher from the manifest, if everything goes perfectly, how many are actually planned. The list is too information dense for me to skim read

Edit: I counted 33, but like the stones at Avebury, I get a different number every time.

[saliva_sweet]

My own wild guesses are that if they get five launches next year they won't go under. I expect them to get 8, same as this year, but my guesses have historically been low by 2 or 3. So I wouldn't be surprised if they get 10 or eleven. Anything more than that would be just fantastic.

[vapour_nudge]

14. I'm confident they'll find their feet this year

[RonM]

I went with 12. Looks like SpaceX can average one launch per month per pad, but pad 40 is down, pad 39A hasn't had a launch yet, and we really don't know when RTF will start.

Once SpaceX gets all three pads going, we could be looking at over 30 flights per year. Then one of these years they add Brownsville for over 40 flights per year. However, if they don't stop blowing up stages, SpaceX can put itself out of business. They need to be more conservative with the F9 and FH.

[arachnitect]

I vote 7.

If this were a probability distribution thread, I'd start ramping up probabilities around 4 or 5, assigning highest probabilities to 7,8,9 and rapidly falling off from there.  I think the probability of exceeding 11 launches is less that 1 in 30. I think the probability of exceeding 15 launches is less than 1 in 200.

In addition to the unknowns of RTF, I think the manifest is filled with troublesome missions and is very vulnerable to problems on both spacex and customer sides.

[Kaputnik]

I guessed correctly last year at eight, but obviously without AMOS I would likely have been very far wrong.

Going to be a bit more optimistic for 2017 and go with 11.