SpaceX progress towards a 100 launch year

[steveleach]

Here's a couple of charts of the actual monthly launch rates from Jan 2021 to Aug 2023, one with an exponential trend line fitted (by Google sheets) and one with a linear trend. All I've done with the grey dots is try to match those trend lines with a monthly growth rate.

Both trend lines go through the data, but the linear trend projects they'll get to 9 by the end of this year, and 11 by the end of next year. The exponential trend projects hitting 10 by the end of this year, and averaging 12 next year.

Read into this what you will.

[mn]

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

Once starship is launching starlink, what is F9 going to launch 12 times a month? Besides starlink is there any other payload on the manifest for this many launches? Will they continue to use F9 for starlink?

[Barley]

Once starship is launching starlink, what is F9 going to launch 12 times a month? Besides starlink is there any other payload on the manifest for this many launches? Will they continue to use F9 for starlink?

Once starship is launching several times a month, routinely reusing at least super heavy.

That's probably several years away.  Prematurely shutting a program down on the mere rumor of a replacement is rather more common than it should be.  Spacex and starlink could not survive that, while they can survive donating a few dozen Falcon 9s as gate guards.

[Zed_Noir]

Once starship is launching starlink, what is F9 going to launch 12 times a month? Besides starlink is there any other payload on the manifest for this many launches? Will they continue to use F9 for starlink?

The recent news that Vega C might be delay returning to flight until late 2024 and the slow introduction of the Ariane 6 and H3 launchers will created a large backlog of payloads for the next few years.

Plus OneWeb, Lightspeed and possibly Project Kuiper will need rides to deploy their constellations. They really have no alternate near term options.

As stated previously SpaceX is turning into the "Spacing Guild" and now maybe "CHOAM" as well.

[redneck]

Once starship is launching starlink, what is F9 going to launch 12 times a month? Besides starlink is there any other payload on the manifest for this many launches? Will they continue to use F9 for starlink?

Once starship is launching several times a month, routinely reusing at least super heavy.

That's probably several years away.  Prematurely shutting a program down on the mere rumor of a replacement is rather more common than it should be.  Spacex and starlink could not survive that, while they can survive donating a few dozen Falcon 9s as gate guards.

An opinion of mine not shared by many is that Starship could use a smaller and more nimble stable mate. Once Starship development is essentially complete, development personnel and facilities will be looking for the next project. It could be a Falcon size ship based on Raptor/Starship technology. Cheaper to operate than Falcon and able to use most of the falcon support facilities. At the same time, cheaper and more versatile than Starship with a fraction of the engine count to fuel and maintain.

Where I have really seen pushback is my opinion that the smaller unit should have been first walking point for Starship.

[DanClemmensen]

Once starship is launching starlink, what is F9 going to launch 12 times a month? Besides starlink is there any other payload on the manifest for this many launches? Will they continue to use F9 for starlink?

Once starship is launching several times a month, routinely reusing at least super heavy.

That's probably several years away.  Prematurely shutting a program down on the mere rumor of a replacement is rather more common than it should be.  Spacex and starlink could not survive that, while they can survive donating a few dozen Falcon 9s as gate guards.

I think that a Starship with recovered SH and expended SS is more expensive than an F9 with recovered booster. For this, the F9 would keep flying any payloads it can carry. I speculate that FH with two recovered side boosters is also cheaper, so it might still fly. Starlink would migrate immediately because SpaceX really, really wants to go to the big V2 satellites and because SpaceX would be eager to use Starhips even it if costs a bit more/kg (which it probably does not). As soon as SS is reliably recoverable, F9 will be restricted to Dragon and FH will be retired. My guess is this will happen in 2028.

I do not know what the incremental ROI for F9 Starlink launches will look like, and I do not know what the operational lifetimes are for the satellites now in orbit, so I cannot build a model for F9 Starlink launches. Launch rate may decline before 2028 if it's cheaper to wait for Starship.

Elon says cadence will be 10/mo by 2023-12   and 12/mo by 2024-12 (or maybe 2024-09, depending on how you parse the tweets).

[alugobi]

"depending on how you parse the tweets"

The magic dust that powers the forum.

[meekGee]

Here's a couple of charts of the actual monthly launch rates from Jan 2021 to Aug 2023, one with an exponential trend line fitted (by Google sheets) and one with a linear trend. All I've done with the grey dots is try to match those trend lines with a monthly growth rate.

Both trend lines go through the data, but the linear trend projects they'll get to 9 by the end of this year, and 11 by the end of next year. The exponential trend projects hitting 10 by the end of this year, and averaging 12 next year.

Read into this what you will.

There's a good lesson there on data fitting.
The numbers tell one story, and it is unambiguous.

And yet when you squint at scattered data points and trend lines, your brain makes you see what you want to see.
There's a huge amount of "play room" when you look at trend lines, and how your brain evaluates their fit, especially near the ends.

Trust in the numbers.  The % growth I showed above are absolute.  +100%, +60%, +20%... 
The fact that the curve fit even looks close just tells you something about curve fits.

[mandrewa]

Here's a couple of charts of the actual monthly launch rates from Jan 2021 to Aug 2023, one with an exponential trend line fitted (by Google sheets) and one with a linear trend. All I've done with the grey dots is try to match those trend lines with a monthly growth rate.

Both trend lines go through the data, but the linear trend projects they'll get to 9 by the end of this year, and 11 by the end of next year. The exponential trend projects hitting 10 by the end of this year, and averaging 12 next year.

Read into this what you will.

I don't find this surprising.  Shouldn't we expect that the exponential trend will end up higher than the linear trend?

The real question is which trend line, the exponential or the linear, fits the data better.

And we want an objective measure of that.

There's probably some well known way to do this.  And I feel like I even knew it at some point.  But I can't remember it.

So I'll just make something up.  Take the absolute value of the distance, measured vertically, from the actual data points to the trend line.  Sum them all up.  Do it for both trends.

The trend line with the smaller sum is the better fit.

[steveleach]

Here's a couple of charts of the actual monthly launch rates from Jan 2021 to Aug 2023, one with an exponential trend line fitted (by Google sheets) and one with a linear trend. All I've done with the grey dots is try to match those trend lines with a monthly growth rate.

Both trend lines go through the data, but the linear trend projects they'll get to 9 by the end of this year, and 11 by the end of next year. The exponential trend projects hitting 10 by the end of this year, and averaging 12 next year.

Read into this what you will.

I don't find this surprising.  Shouldn't we expect that the exponential trend will end up higher than the linear trend?

The real question is which trend line, the exponential or the linear, fits the data better.

And we want an objective measure of that.

There's probably some well known way to do this.  And I feel like I even knew it at some point.  But I can't remember it.

So I'll just make something up.  Take the absolute value of the distance, measured vertically, from the actual data points to the trend line.  Sum them all up.  Do it for both trends.

The trend line with the smaller sum is the better fit.

If you care enough, go ahead.

Personally, I'm happy enough that what I have already lets me understand the projections coming out of SpaceX, and the only reason I'd have to analyse it further is to argue with people in this thread, an argument I lost interest in a while back.

Back to the original topic though - neither trend is now predicting 100 F9 launches this year, and even adding in a couple of Starship launches they'll still probably make only 98 or 99.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Approximately monthly update on stats for the year so far

https://twitter.com/_rykllan/status/1698651798989390163

@elonmusk's 100 launches plan as of Sep 4, 2023

[eeergo]

Here's a couple of charts of the actual monthly launch rates from Jan 2021 to Aug 2023, one with an exponential trend line fitted (by Google sheets) and one with a linear trend. All I've done with the grey dots is try to match those trend lines with a monthly growth rate.

Both trend lines go through the data, but the linear trend projects they'll get to 9 by the end of this year, and 11 by the end of next year. The exponential trend projects hitting 10 by the end of this year, and averaging 12 next year.

Read into this what you will.

I don't find this surprising.  Shouldn't we expect that the exponential trend will end up higher than the linear trend?

The real question is which trend line, the exponential or the linear, fits the data better.

And we want an objective measure of that.

There's probably some well known way to do this.  And I feel like I even knew it at some point.  But I can't remember it.

So I'll just make something up.  Take the absolute value of the distance, measured vertically, from the actual data points to the trend line.  Sum them all up.  Do it for both trends.

The trend line with the smaller sum is the better fit.

There are statistical confidence intervals and other tools to do just that, in a rigorous way. No need to reinvent the wheel with ad-hoc methods. A few months ago when things were still less clear I made such an argument with the so-called "R value", which clearly showed better fit to a linear trend within a yearly period. Some didn't want to understand it, muddling the waters by appealing to long-term trends or esotericities, even stating 120+ launches in 2023 was a good fit to the trend.

I won't take time to redo that analysis at the moment, given some pretty good probes have been derived here in the meantime, along with more rigorous mathematical principles. There is still an amount of uncertainty that gives wings to fantasies, but the evidence is now pretty unambiguous with 2/3rds of the year passed. To no detriment to Falcon's operations, which are no doubt jaw-dropping.

[meekGee]

Here's a couple of charts of the actual monthly launch rates from Jan 2021 to Aug 2023, one with an exponential trend line fitted (by Google sheets) and one with a linear trend. All I've done with the grey dots is try to match those trend lines with a monthly growth rate.

Both trend lines go through the data, but the linear trend projects they'll get to 9 by the end of this year, and 11 by the end of next year. The exponential trend projects hitting 10 by the end of this year, and averaging 12 next year.

Read into this what you will.

I don't find this surprising.  Shouldn't we expect that the exponential trend will end up higher than the linear trend?

The real question is which trend line, the exponential or the linear, fits the data better.

And we want an objective measure of that.

There's probably some well known way to do this.  And I feel like I even knew it at some point.  But I can't remember it.

So I'll just make something up.  Take the absolute value of the distance, measured vertically, from the actual data points to the trend line.  Sum them all up.  Do it for both trends.

The trend line with the smaller sum is the better fit.

There are statistical confidence intervals and other tools to do just that, in a rigorous way. No need to reinvent the wheel with ad-hoc methods. A few months ago when things were still less clear I made such an argument with the so-called "R value", which clearly showed better fit to a linear trend within a yearly period. Some didn't want to understand it, muddling the waters by appealing to long-term trends or esotericities, even stating 120+ launches in 2023 was a good fit to the trend.

I won't take time to redo that analysis at the moment, given some pretty good probes have been derived here in the meantime, along with more rigorous mathematical principles. There is still an amount of uncertainty that gives wings to fantasies, but the evidence is now pretty unambiguous with 2/3rds of the year passed. To no detriment to Falcon's operations, which are no doubt jaw-dropping.

Some people got upset since they think saying it's not exponential (or that is is linear) means that there's no growth.

Of course there's still growth, even if a local window (e.g. Dec-June) stayed at a constant level.

But even SpaceX's own projections are not exponential or even linear.  They're "just" increasing.

It's the "inflation of terms"...  When everything is "exponential", we get disappointed when something isn't.

[Robotbeat]

“Just increasing” is not a model.

No one is upset.

[Robotbeat]

Here's a couple of charts of the actual monthly launch rates from Jan 2021 to Aug 2023, one with an exponential trend line fitted (by Google sheets) and one with a linear trend. All I've done with the grey dots is try to match those trend lines with a monthly growth rate.

Both trend lines go through the data, but the linear trend projects they'll get to 9 by the end of this year, and 11 by the end of next year. The exponential trend projects hitting 10 by the end of this year, and averaging 12 next year.

Read into this what you will.

I don't find this surprising.  Shouldn't we expect that the exponential trend will end up higher than the linear trend?

The real question is which trend line, the exponential or the linear, fits the data better.

And we want an objective measure of that.

There's probably some well known way to do this.  And I feel like I even knew it at some point.  But I can't remember it.

So I'll just make something up.  Take the absolute value of the distance, measured vertically, from the actual data points to the trend line.  Sum them all up.  Do it for both trends.

The trend line with the smaller sum is the better fit.

There are statistical confidence intervals and other tools to do just that, in a rigorous way. No need to reinvent the wheel with ad-hoc methods. A few months ago when things were still less clear I made such an argument with the so-called "R value", which clearly showed better fit to a linear trend within a yearly period. Some didn't want to understand it, muddling the waters by appealing to long-term trends or esotericities, even stating 120+ launches in 2023 was a good fit to the trend.

I won't take time to redo that analysis at the moment, given some pretty good probes have been derived here in the meantime, along with more rigorous mathematical principles. There is still an amount of uncertainty that gives wings to fantasies, but the evidence is now pretty unambiguous with 2/3rds of the year passed. To no detriment to Falcon's operations, which are no doubt jaw-dropping.

Is this a reference to my model?

Because it’s still projecting 100-105 flights this year, same as it has for the last 6 months or so, back when piecewise linear models were projecting in the 80s. It’s near the end of the year, so less time for it to be wrong; all that would go out the window in the case of a launch failure.

[eeergo]

Is this a reference to my model?


Because it’s still projecting 100-105 flights this year, same as it has for the last 6 months or so, back when piecewise linear models were projecting in the 80s. It’s near the end of the year, so less time for it to be wrong; all that would go out the window in the case of a launch failure.

Not just yours, but since you ask:

106.228 launches in 2023.

The estimated number of launches in 2023: 110.51135940155463
...with the latest launch today.

Well as of today they're on track for over 100 total launches (~107 as of now) through the end of 2023, assuming compounding improvement fitted to those two facts.

SpaceX is currently on track for about 105-110 launches [NB: 108 in code] in 2023 given constant overall improvement in capacity consistent with the 61 launches last year and 45 launches in the first half of this year.

The predictions above were from exactly 5, 4 and 2 months ago respectively (April 1st / 3rd, May 2nd, and June 27th).  So no, your model hasn't been predicting just over a hundred for the better part of the year - quite the contrary.

Only in the last few weeks have you brought those down somewhat to just over a hundred, around 103... although it's not clear why, since the pace has only slightly increased since May, as others have shown here. You recently claimed your estimates to have <1% of variance, which given the above is patently false (more like +/- 4%), while claiming the yearly linear extrapolations were "all over the place".


Yearly linear models have been hovering at the mid-to-high 80s since this thread started. Moreover, as I mentioned here, the multi-year exponentially-increasing trend (very noisy given the ups and downs in launch cadence around 2017/2020, consequently not too reliable for a small time period, yet the best fit for SpaceX's overall launch pace since 2010) also predicts around 85 launches by this year's end - unless we impose a discontinuity for 2023's pace over the usual cadence acceleration, which is precisely what you have been arguing against.

Personally, I find meekgee has been doing a superb job at (patiently, rigorously) explaining the virtues and vices of certain analyses here.

[steveleach]

They've had 60 launches this year already (including one Starship), so they'd really need to degrade the rate to only manage another 25 in the next four months.

[alugobi]

Musk said that they hope to make 10/month by the end of the year.  Whatever that means. 

They need four 10-launch months to make 100. 

[mandrewa]

Musk said that they hope to make 10/month by the end of the year.  Whatever that means. 

They need four 10-launch months to make 100. 

Isn't it 9 per month for the remaining months that they would need to reach 100?

62 (now)
34 (4 x 9 less 2 already included in the count)
 4 (more Starship test flights)
--
100

Edit: Realized it was 62.

[spacenut]

Even if they don't make 100 this year, they will probably make it next year.  Starlinks, NASA and Space Force launches, other launches, and Starship launches.