SpaceX progress towards a 100 launch year

[Robotbeat]

Personal opinion? I count Starship, but I don’t think 2 flights is worth fighting over.

[spacenut]

So how many launches so far or how many left to make 100 by Dec. 31st.?

[Twark_Main]

What's this round-to rubbish?  51 rounds to 100 too. For some people, so does 49.5.  Come on!

True, true. Well, maybe not 49.5.

But by most sensible definitions of "round to", I think it will qualify.

If we're going by orders-of-magnitude, 49.5 (= 10^1.69) is closer to 10² than 10¹. 

100 is only 102% larger than 49.5, whereas 49.5 is a whopping 395% larger than 10. Multiplicatively (as opposed to additively), 49.5 is indeed "closer" to 100 than 10.

http://www.vendian.org/envelope/dir0/oom.html

[catdlr]

So how many launches so far or how many are left to make 100 by Dec. 31st.?

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=58240.msg2544690#msg2544690

13 to go.

[CuddlyRocket]

The excuse-making begins.

I don't think there's a need for excuses. Even if they only get to 96-99 launches this year that's still a 50% increase on 2022, an impressive achievement by anyone's standard.

When judging performance against a target you have to take into account how stretching that target was. They could have been given a softish target like 75 and if they got to 90 people might say 'wow, they smashed it by 20%!', but that's less launches than they'll achieve 'missing' the actual target.

[redneck]

Personal opinion? I count Starship, but I don’t think 2 flights is worth fighting over.

Personal opinion is that I disagree. Starship had extremely good test flights that were no orbital successes. If talking about orbit, I call them attempts. If talking about flight test, I call them successes.   Depends on your metric.

[steveleach]

The excuse-making begins.

I don't think there's a need for excuses. Even if they only get to 96-99 launches this year that's still a 50% increase on 2022, an impressive achievement by anyone's standard.

When judging performance against a target you have to take into account how stretching that target was. They could have been given a softish target like 75 and if they got to 90 people might say 'wow, they smashed it by 20%!', but that's less launches than they'll achieve 'missing' the actual target.

Everyone has their own definitions, interpretations and expectations, and that's fine.  I don't see a need for us to all agree on this, or it being particularly likely that we would given the history in this thread.

I can't remember exactly how many launches SpaceX had in 2021, but I think it was about 30, and I'm not counting Starship or Starhopper in that. I'm sure in a year or two I won't remember exactly how many there were in 2023, but I will remember that it was about 100 and I did include the Starship IFTs.

Others might just remember that it was less than 100 Falcon 9/Heavy launches, and that's fine too.

[Robotbeat]

Personal opinion? I count Starship, but I don’t think 2 flights is worth fighting over.

Personal opinion is that I disagree. Starship had extremely good test flights that were no orbital successes. If talking about orbit, I call them attempts. If talking about flight test, I call them successes.   Depends on your metric.

I don’t consider them successful flights (but are successful /tests/), but they are flights and that is what the metric is, here. And yeah, these are definitely equivalent to orbital flights, it’s just for safety, ensuring the debris lands in the right spot (unlike early Long March 5 missions which left the core in orbit to randomly reenter), and I’m not gonna ding spacex for making a responsible decision there (which they are kind of forced to due to FAA requirements).

But again, it’s just two flights.

[alugobi]

The excuse-making begins.

I don't think there's a need for excuses. Even if they only get to 96-99 launches this year that's still a 50% increase on 2022, an impressive achievement by anyone's standard.

When judging performance against a target you have to take into account how stretching that target was. They could have been given a softish target like 75 and if they got to 90 people might say 'wow, they smashed it by 20%!', but that's less launches than they'll achieve 'missing' the actual target.

I agree.  My comment was a swipe at the focus on a number, rather than what SX has actually been doing.

If they quit right now and took December off, they'd already have had a great year.

[xyv]

They have had and are having a great year and I have said so many times.  I stated the way I am tracking this up front even if I moved Elon's goal posts (I don't think I actually read the Tweet at the time).  SS launches were successful for what they were; if any Falcon had either of those launches we would be discussing a return to flight instead of if 96 rounds to 100 .

[kevin-rf]

Yes,  but if a Falcon 9/Heavy launch fails we would still be counting it in the march towards 100.

[Nomadd]

 It's a good thing this didn't happen a few years ago or everybody would be arguing over counting SN10 once or twice.

[steveleach]

It's a good thing this didn't happen a few years ago or everybody would be arguing over counting SN10 once or twice.

SN10 was in 2021, so clearly a "couple" of years ago, not a "few".

[Robotbeat]

In terms of the FAA and the Boca Chica launch limits, IFT1 and 2 clearly count against the orbital flight limit, not just the smaller suborbital. Silly argument, here.

[meekGee]

What's this round-to rubbish?  51 rounds to 100 too. For some people, so does 49.5.  Come on!

Indeed.

The excuse-making begins.

Well, "excuse" for launching only, what, 97 per year?

Just inconsistency.  100 is just a nice round number that some folks cling to.  Going from 60 to 97 or to 101 is equally mind blowing.  And rn the cadence is at 120/yr, so clearly the sliding 12-month average is increasing...

Remember the goal is to hit 12/month at the end of 2024, with an overall yearly total of 120..  amd again, so suppose it's only 119?

[alugobi]

A nice number that some folks cling to. 

That's exactly what I was addressing.  It seems to have taken on outsized importance for some, hitting that number.  When, like you suggest, 97 is mind blowing in itself.

It's not a failure if they come up a little short.

[Ben Baley]

A nice number that some folks cling to. 

That's exactly what I was addressing.  It seems to have taken on outsized importance for some, hitting that number.  When, like you suggest, 97 is mind blowing in itself.

It's not a failure if they come up a little short.

I don't think anyone is denying the incredibleness of SpaceX's accomplishment, in line with the somewhat pedantic nature of this thread with the arguments over linear vs exponential fits,  I just have to point out that while 97 might be amazing, it's still not 100.

This thread is about the progress towards 100 launches/year, not ~100/year.
 

[Perchlorate]

A nice number that some folks cling to. 

That's exactly what I was addressing.  It seems to have taken on outsized importance for some, hitting that number.  When, like you suggest, 97 is mind blowing in itself.

It's not a failure if they come up a little short.

I don't think anyone is denying the incredibleness of SpaceX's accomplishment, in line with the somewhat pedantic nature of this thread with the arguments over linear vs exponential fits,  I just have to point out that while 97 might be amazing, it's still not 100.

This thread is about the progress towards 100 launches/year, not ~100/year.
 

So, earlier today I'm reading this thread and thinking, "How silly of us to be so enchanted with the nice round number 100 that it's a topic of fairly vigorous discussion, and some folks want to include the IFT's out of Texas to help get the numbers up to the magic 100.  95, 97, 101, all are spectacular achievements...why the fixation on the century mark by some pretty smart, emotionally stable folk???"

Then I chuckled a self-deprecating chuckle and remembered...

This March 14, my mother died a peaceful death from natural causes at the age of 99 years, 7 months and 23 days.  Our family wanted here to pass when she was ready, but quietly were cheering her on toward her 100th birthday.

When she didn't make it, I remember telling a friend who never met her, "Well, she really lived over 100 years, if you count her time inside her own mother!"

 

[ Mods, have your way with this one if you feel it's out of line even for this rangey thread. ]

[ZachS09]

A nice number that some folks cling to. 

That's exactly what I was addressing.  It seems to have taken on outsized importance for some, hitting that number.  When, like you suggest, 97 is mind blowing in itself.

It's not a failure if they come up a little short.

I don't think anyone is denying the incredibleness of SpaceX's accomplishment, in line with the somewhat pedantic nature of this thread with the arguments over linear vs exponential fits,  I just have to point out that while 97 might be amazing, it's still not 100.

This thread is about the progress towards 100 launches/year, not ~100/year.
 

So, earlier today I'm reading this thread and thinking, "How silly of us to be so enchanted with the nice round number 100 that it's a topic of fairly vigorous discussion, and some folks want to include the IFT's out of Texas to help get the numbers up to the magic 100.  95, 97, 101, all are spectacular achievements...why the fixation on the century mark by some pretty smart, emotionally stable folk???"

Then I chuckled a self-deprecating chuckle and remembered...

This March 14, my mother died a peaceful death from natural causes at the age of 99 years, 7 months and 23 days.  Our family wanted here to pass when she was ready, but quietly were cheering her on toward her 100th birthday.

When she didn't make it, I remember telling a friend who never met her, "Well, she really lived over 100 years, if you count her time inside her own mother!"

 

[ Mods, have your way with this one if you feel it's out of line even for this rangey thread. ]

I'm sorry about your loss back then. Don't worry about it being out of line. It's an understandable comparison to how some constitute 100 SpaceX launches all together.

[catdlr]

[ Mods, have your way with this one if you feel it's out of line even for this rangey thread. ]

Perchlorate,
No need to apologize Perchlorate, we all are sorry for your loss. 

We all look forward to reaching certain milestones in our lives (birthdays, anniversaries, lay-off notices, etc).  Remember to appreciate our time on this planet and always say I love you to the ones you love, You never know when sadness will occur and you wish that you had.

In appreciation to Life
Tony.