SpaceX progress towards a 100 launch year

[dolphin5588]

Falcon 9 will remain popular for small to medium payloads due to its size. Smaller solo payloads, at least for the foreseeable future will not be cost-effective to launch on the Starship, which will be better optimized for larger missions.

[spacenut]

Starship can also launch smaller sats as rideshares.  SpaceX has said they are probably going to phase out Falcon 9 rockets after 2030 because they are going to be doing so many Starship launches.  A tanker Starship could be equipped to handle a small sat, so could the Starlink Starships. 

[DanClemmensen]

Falcon 9 will remain popular for small to medium payloads due to its size. Smaller solo payloads, at least for the foreseeable future will not be cost-effective to launch on the Starship, which will be better optimized for larger missions.

Why do you believe this? If SpaceX achieves its goals, a Starship launch will be cheaper than an F9 launch even for a single one kilogram cubesat. There will be no payload that is cheaper on F9 except for the special case of a Dragon.

[meekGee]

Falcon 9 will remain popular for small to medium payloads due to its size. Smaller solo payloads, at least for the foreseeable future will not be cost-effective to launch on the Starship, which will be better optimized for larger missions.

Why do you believe this? If SpaceX achieves its goals, a Starship launch will be cheaper than an F9 launch even for a single one kilogram cubesat. There will be no payload that is cheaper on F9 except for the special case of a Dragon.

I'm pretty sure F9 will linger for quite some time since the infrastructure already exists and some customers may not get with the program as fast as we'd all want them to...

But Starlink will transition early, and Starlink is a majority of F9's business.   Heh maybe they'll offer to launch Kuipers on it...

But I just can't see SpaceX investing in creating more F9 infrastructure, not when the same dollars can go towards more SS pads amd factories.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
I'm pretty sure F9 will linger for quite some time since the infrastructure already exists and some customers may not get with the program as fast as we'd all want them to...

But Starlink will transition early, and Starlink is a majority of F9's business.   Heh maybe they'll offer to launch Kuipers on it...

But I just can't see SpaceX investing in creating more F9 infrastructure, not when the same dollars can go towards more SS pads amd factories.

You are wrong. SpaceX have to invest in pad infrastructure vertical payload integration for certain NSSL payloads. Since it is more than likely that Vulcan Centaur will come online late and AFAIK ULA hasn't started work converting pad SLC-3E for the new launcher. Expect SpaceX will use both pad SLC-37B at CCSFS and pad SLC-6 at VSFB for Falcon Heavy and NSSL launches until Starship is NSSL certified.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

<snip>
I'm pretty sure F9 will linger for quite some time since the infrastructure already exists and some customers may not get with the program as fast as we'd all want them to...

But Starlink will transition early, and Starlink is a majority of F9's business.   Heh maybe they'll offer to launch Kuipers on it...

But I just can't see SpaceX investing in creating more F9 infrastructure, not when the same dollars can go towards more SS pads amd factories.

You are wrong. SpaceX have to invest in pad infrastructure vertical payload integration for certain NSSL payloads. Since it is more than likely that Vulcan Centaur will come online late and AFAIK ULA hasn't started work converting pad SLC-3E for the new launcher. Expect SpaceX will use both pad SLC-37B at CCSFS and pad SLC-6 at VSFB for Falcon Heavy and NSSL launches until Starship is NSSL certified.

I think we are getting a little wide afield for this thread.

But anyway:

The key here is amount of payloads and inclination plus launch price for those payloads on Starship. The final item is Starship's ability to launch to the requested inclination. Why do you think that Electron has done 40 launches so far at $12M a launch. Its all those inclinations that don't exactly fit with the more common ones that a lot of payloads are headed to.

SpaceX is only obligated to perform launches for customers it actually has contracts. Being on the NSSL or the NASA certified lists are not contracts. ULA just stopped doing any new contracts on via the NSSL or NASA listing for Atlas V or Delta IV giving themselves an ability to convert to the Vulcan. SpaceX would do the same.

The only reason for keeping F9 around for SpaceX is to launch Starlinks to inclinations that Starship has difficulty in reaching economically. Which would incentivize the build up of infrastructure to support such inclinations for Starship in the near future once Starship begins heading out of its development phase. As in both SH and SS have shown capability for reusability. SH and SS have both flown for a single serial number vehicle more than 1 time.


OK now back to our regularly scheduled thread.

[meekGee]

&lt;snip&gt;
I'm pretty sure F9 will linger for quite some time since the infrastructure already exists and some customers may not get with the program as fast as we'd all want them to...

But Starlink will transition early, and Starlink is a majority of F9's business.   Heh maybe they'll offer to launch Kuipers on it...

But I just can't see SpaceX investing in creating more F9 infrastructure, not when the same dollars can go towards more SS pads amd factories.

You are wrong. SpaceX have to invest in pad infrastructure vertical payload integration for certain NSSL payloads. Since it is more than likely that Vulcan Centaur will come online late and AFAIK ULA hasn't started work converting pad SLC-3E for the new launcher. Expect SpaceX will use both pad SLC-37B at CCSFS and pad SLC-6 at VSFB for Falcon Heavy and NSSL launches until Starship is NSSL certified.

I'm already including the NSSL VI work as a done deal.  It won't affect bandwidth though.   Similar to crew access on pad 40.

As for SLC-6 and 37B - I'd wait and see what they actually do.

[meekGee]

Falcon Launches: 7-7-7-7-7-7-8-8

Even assuming 4 Starship launches in 2023, we need to average 8/month Falcons over the year (for 96 total), for example:

7-7-7-7-7-7-8-8--|--9-9-10-10

Still possible but getting harder.

While they almost did 10 this month, remember that July was also like that....

So again September is starting out with two very early launches (9/1) and might just finlly give us a 10, assuming C-40 work won't get in the way.

[xyv]

Well the UTC time for the second launch attempt today is now out of the month so here we are.  Had a shot at a 10 launch month but ended up at 8 - with a great chance for a  head start into September.  Even without that a little "fishook" in the main plot and a gradual up tilt to the end-of-year porject of the linear (I know...) curve fit.  2/3 of the year gone and very nearly the 2022 total...pretty unreal.

[alugobi]

Scorecard through August.  Includes Starship 1. 

[Robotbeat]

Missed one! 9 in august…

[alugobi]

Following UTC time.

[Comga]

Using my home time zone....
Here is a chart updated after two thirds of the year.
Definitions are in an earlier post.
The conservative methods predict a few less than 100.
The more "forward leaning" methods predict a few more than 100.
Your guess/estimate/extrapolation is as good as mine.


edit: The Starship/SuperHeavy Flight Test 1 is included, as will be SS/SH Fl 2

[spacenuance]

Great work by the SpaceX team successfully launching 61 Falcon rocket missions this year!

If tomorrow’s mission goes well, we will exceed last year’s flight count.

SpaceX has delivered ~80% of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023. China is ~10% & rest of world other ~10%.

Aiming for 10 Falcon flights in a month by end of this year, then 12 per month next year

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698045247547212093?s=20

[meekGee]

Great work by the SpaceX team successfully launching 61 Falcon rocket missions this year!

If tomorrow’s mission goes well, we will exceed last year’s flight count.

SpaceX has delivered ~80% of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023. China is ~10% & rest of world other ~10%.

Aiming for 10 Falcon flights in a month by end of this year, then 12 per month next year

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1698045247547212093?s=20

Keeps growing, but by smaller amounts.

Which makes sense.  F9 is not quite sunsetting, but it's not exploding (bad pun) like it used to.

I'm not surprised by continuing growth in 2023, but am a bit surprised by projected growth in 2024.

[steveleach]

If SpaceX keep the launch rate growing month-on-month the way they have since the start of 2021 (curve fitting suggests x1.037 / mo for Jan 21 to Aug 23) then they could be nudging 15 launches a month by the end of 2024, assuming Starship doesn't eat F9's Starlink market.

They'd hit the 12 mentioned by Elon around June, and average just over 12 per month across the year.

[meekGee]

If SpaceX keep the launch rate growing month-on-month the way they have since the start of 2021 (curve fitting suggests x1.037 / mo for Jan 21 to Aug 23) then they could be nudging 15 launches a month by the end of 2024, assuming Starship doesn't eat F9's Starlink market.

They'd hit the 12 mentioned by Elon around June, and average just over 12 per month across the year.

What you're doing is not curve fitting.

If you take two end values, n months apart, and take the n-th root of their ratio, you'll get an exponential function that "fits" the data...

You can also just divide their difference by n, and get a linear function that "fits" the data.

You can't assume a model, choose two points, squint at the graph, amd declare success.

How do you know which is a better fit?  Look at intermediate values.  Do successive points (or a sliding window averages, to remove noise) follow a geometric progression, with a constant RATIO?  If yes, it's exponential.

Do they follow an arithmetic progression, with a constant DIFFERENCE?  If yes  then it's linear. In a linear progression, the year-to-year ratio will decrease.

Without a doubt, SpaceX's number are growing in a linear fashion.

From 2021 to 2022, they doubled.  From 2022 to 2023, they will be closer to 1.5x.  the next jump, per Musk is going to be only 1.2x.

That is not exponential. The rario is decreasing, and fast.

The absolute growth OTOH is +30, +40, +20...  that's pretty much linear, with perturbations up and down.

[steveleach]

It should go without saying that if you don't believe the growth is exponential, you can safely ignore any projections about exponential growth.

[meekGee]

Guys, (Robotbeat, Steve) - words have meaning.

"Exponential" means growing by the same fixed ratio over time.

The term has been used commonly (often by Musk too) to denote fast growth, but here we specifically were using it to predict future growth.

F9's growth is nothing but astounding, especially in a market that was claimed to be capped, but while growth is continuing, every year it's growing by less.

That's an undeniable fact, and it's not shortchanging SpaceX in any way.

[meekGee]

It should go without saying that if you don't believe the growth is exponential, you can safely ignore any projections about exponential growth.

Belief has nothing to do with it...

First year had a monthly growth rate of 6%
Second year might have a monthly growth rate of 4.3%
Third year is now projected to have a monthly growth rate of 1.5%

What I don't understand is why the desire to call it that.

They're not even true monthly rates, since they're so sporadic.

This whole thing started as a counter argument to people who thought monthly rates were fixed throughout the year, but then evolved into the exponential claims.

We're giving exponent a bad name.