SpaceX progress towards a 100 launch year

[eeergo]

Look at the updated chart in the original post. The red and blue lines show the same as my illustration (though with red and blue colours swapped): it is an upwards curve not matching a linear projection, exactly as you'd expect.

The blue line is merely an arbitrary projection (to 100, not to the actual final value).

Try to fit the existing data to both linear and exponential now, and you'll see the difference between either is unappreciable, well within the noise. Furthermore, if you try to fit it with the multiyear trend, with predictive intents, to try to glimpse what it would look like this year, it will grossly overshoot wrt the actual data.

With the current string of weather delays, it will be even clearer. Some may argue this is "bad luck" detracting away from a faster trend - but that's exactly the same effect with opposite sign as other sprees of "good luck" that happened recently (i.e. absence of range conflicts with other launches, absence of really bad weather, recent regulatory improvements and range turnaround by third parties...), which are external to SpaceX virtues or vices, and which dominated the trend until now. It's indeed what makes up the "noise" I was talking about in the stochastic process. It can be argued to be averaging out the relative "step-wise overshoot" over a more linear trend observed in early November.

Looks like the expected total will now be lower (94-95)  than the optimistic projections I was assuming a few days ago, widening the divide between the two models.

[catdlr]

It's always going to be bad weather in Dec.  Why be annual in counting and start Dec 1 and end Nov 30 the following year?

[steveleach]

The blue line is merely an arbitrary projection (to 100, not to the actual final value).

Try to fit the existing data to both linear and exponential now, and you'll see the difference between either is unappreciable, well within the noise. Furthermore, if you try to fit it with the multiyear trend, with predictive intents, to try to glimpse what it would look like this year, it will grossly overshoot wrt the actual data.

With the current string of weather delays, it will be even clearer. Some may argue this is "bad luck" detracting away from a faster trend - but that's exactly the same effect with opposite sign as other sprees of "good luck" that happened recently (i.e. absence of range conflicts with other launches, absence of really bad weather, recent regulatory improvements and range turnaround by third parties...), which are external to SpaceX virtues or vices, and which dominated the trend until now. It's indeed what makes up the "noise" I was talking about in the stochastic process. It can be argued to be averaging out the relative "step-wise overshoot" over a more linear trend observed in early November.

Looks like the expected total will now be lower (94-95)  than the optimistic projections I was assuming a few days ago, widening the divide between the two models.

Thanks for the diversion but I'm giving up now as we're not getting anywhere and just annoying everyone else.

[eeergo]

Thanks for the diversion but I'm giving up now as we're not getting anywhere and just annoying everyone else.

Agreed, especially since we have discussed this exact same issue, some with math and some just conceptually, a few pages back.

It's always going to be bad weather in Dec.  Why be annual in counting and start Dec 1 and end Nov 30 the following year?

Or in hurricane season. Or...

A posteriori rebinning is a known vice in data analysis.

Thread was about a certain count in a certain period. Other people upthread have shown a rate of 100 launches in the last 365 days was reached a while back. Others have also shown the moving average of instantaneous rate. However, the OP's premise happens to be SpaceX's stated goal for Falcon in 2023 too, making this metric especially compelling to watch.

[catdlr]

Thanks for the diversion but I'm giving up now as we're not getting anywhere and just annoying everyone else.

Agreed, especially since we have discussed this exact same issue, some with math and some just conceptually, a few pages back.

It's always going to be bad weather in Dec.  Why be annual in counting and start Dec 1 and end Nov 30 the following year?

Or in hurricane season. Or...

A posteriori rebinning is a known vice in data analysis.

The thread was about a certain count in a certain period. Other people upthread have shown a rate of 100 launches in the last 365 days was reached a while back. Others have also shown the moving average of the instantaneous rate. However, the OP's premise happens to be SpaceX's stated goal for Falcon in 2023 too, making this metric especially compelling to watch.

eeergo ,

I completely agree with you. It seems that the people who are working hard to meet Elon Musk's goal of SpaceX are the members of the NSF rather than Elon himself. If SpaceX doesn't meet his goal, Elon might not even care and just come up with an excuse or shift the goalpost (i.e., I meant Fiscal Year). However, the SpaceX team should do their best despite any unforeseen circumstances that can affect their plans. Even if they fall short of their target, they should still celebrate and aim for the next year's goal.

Thanks for the response eeergo,
Tony

[Brigantine]

100 SpaceX launches is looking comfortable for now now in some doubt - 7 launches in 17 days.

365 day total down to 95+2, going on 93+2 - Good thing we caught that "100" during the 0.6 days we had it

100 SpaceX launches is starting to look hopeless too.


Now relying on at least 2 all 3 of:
- Starlink 7-9 launching some time between Dec 29 and Dec 31
- OTV-7 launching some time between Dec 29 and Dec 31
- 4 in 14 days from SLC-40 - with a 3.93 day pad turnaround record
- another big new record Short of magic 2-day turnarounds, there's nothing
- B10/S28 launching by Dec 31 NET January 2024
- 3 in 17 days from SLC-4E No time after 7-9 for a 3rd

[Robotbeat]

I agree we’re likely not to quite hit 100 SpaCex launches (the title of the thread) this year. Probably will get to high 90s, tho. Pretty close to the “up to 100 launches.”

[alugobi]

However, the OP's premise happens to be SpaceX's stated goal for Falcon in 2023

For a while there, you couldn't even see a consensus on that. 

But it seems to have come around, after Musk's latest comments and some quoting from the past. 

[xyv]

The blue line is merely an arbitrary projection (to 100, not to the actual final value).

Not even pojection - it's the scoreboard..."how we doin' so far..." Do I use it as forward projection? Of course, but I have never claimed it is a "model" but rather a ruler to measure progress during the year.  This whole year may be unique in this kind of modeling anyway - things like fitting an exponential require that the launch rate is only constrained by launch resources - not customers, payload avialability etc.  SpaceX deploying Starlink and able to fill in extrernal launch gaps to keep to a growing launch rate may not be duplicated for quite a while.

[steveleach]

The blue line is merely an arbitrary projection (to 100, not to the actual final value).

Not even pojection - it's the scoreboard..."how we doin' so far..." Do I use it as forward projection? Of course, but I have never claimed it is a "model" but rather a ruler to measure progress during the year.  This whole year may be unique in this kind of modeling anyway - things like fitting an exponential require that the launch rate is only constrained by launch resources - not customers, payload avialability etc.  SpaceX deploying Starlink and able to fill in extrernal launch gaps to keep to a growing launch rate may not be duplicated for quite a while.

Argh, I can't stay away.

All I've been saying is that if our scoreboard had used a sligthly curved ruler to measure the progress, with the degree of curvature determined by the month-on-month growth rate from the previous 2 years, the actual launch rate would have tracked it really well.

[duh]

Guess I am missing something or speak a strange dialect of English:

"up to 100 launches" --> IMO this sets an upper limit. Good thing 101 launches now appears to be out of the question.

Anybody remember the expression:

"Ready. Aim. Fire."

Did not know I had to be ready to aim. Just because I am aiming, it does not mean I have to fire.
Seems to me that zero (0) launches met the "up to 100" launch comment.

Time for me to disappear again for a while (some  may say hopefully for a very long while   :-)   )

[meekGee]

Guess I am missing something or speak a strange dialect of English:

"up to 100 launches" --> IMO this sets an upper limit. Good thing 101 launches now appears to be out of the question.

Anybody remember the expression:

"Ready. Aim. Fire."

Did not know I had to be ready to aim. Just because I am aiming, it does not mean I have to fire.
Seems to me that zero (0) launches met the "up to 100" launch comment.

Time for me to disappear again for a while (some  may say hopefully for a very long while   :-)   )

Finally someone making sense!

[AmigaClone]

I fully expect to see many articles in the first few days of January with headlines along the lines of "SpaceX misses target number of launches."

It would not be a surprise to see no mention in many of those articles of the small detail that SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 more times in 2023 than the previous record for launches in a year by an orbital launch vehicle - and for an orbital launch vehicle family.

At this point, SpaceX has more successful orbital launches in 2023 using a Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy than the annual number of successful launches by entire world between 1993 and 2017. I would be surprised if that bit of information made it into any article speaking of SpaceX's goal for up to 100 orbital Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy this year.

[alugobi]

I fully expect to see many articles in the first few days of January with headlines along the lines of "SpaceX misses target number of launches."

Almost...  You have to work "Elon Musk" into there somewhere.  Otherwise, most won't care and some won't even know what you're talking about.

[M.E.T.]

Still bemused (and increasingly amused) by this thread.

SpaceX launches ~95 orbital rockets in 2023, with a total up mass exceeding 1000 tons.

The next best US launcher has launched 9 times so far this year (of which 8 were successes), for a total up mass of maybe 2.5 tons. In total.

But the critics’ best take is “But Elon promised 100 launches! Why is he so unreliable!”

Sigh.

[meekGee]

Guess I am missing something or speak a strange dialect of English:

"up to 100 launches" --> IMO this sets an upper limit. Good thing 101 launches now appears to be out of the question.

Anybody remember the expression:

"Ready. Aim. Fire."

Did not know I had to be ready to aim. Just because I am aiming, it does not mean I have to fire.
Seems to me that zero (0) launches met the "up to 100" launch comment.

Time for me to disappear again for a while (some  may say hopefully for a very long while   :-)   )

Finally someone making sense!

 No he's not. You take that back.

After 500 pages of nitpicking, semantics and bad math, it was the little boy who cried havoc and let slip the hogs of war, that's how much sense it all made.  Better?

[Galactic Penguin SST]

With the lull finally gone and current count standing at 92 Falcons + 2 Starships, let's have a final review for the shot in the 2023 calendar year:

TL;DR: Chance of 100 Falcon 9 & Heavy launches is out.
100 SpaceX launches including Starship is still on - just barely. It would require a December 31 (UTC) launch out of SLC-40.

LC-39A: FH/USSF-52 (Dec. 29 ~01:15 UTC)
SLC-4E: SARah 2/3 (Dec. 22 NET 13:00 UTC) -> Starlink 7-9 (Dec. 29 05:09 UTC)
SLC-40: Starlink 6-32 (Dec. 23 ~04:00 UTC) -> Launch A (~Dec. 27) -> Launch B (~Dec. 31)

The uncertainty with Ovzon-3 (once set for Dec. 22) complicates matters as their daily window is in late afternoon LT while recent Starlink launches are all around midnight local (probably due to ease of regulatory approval, e.g. air traffic effects due to zone closures?). If Ovzon-3 is one of A or B, then there will have to be a record-breaking pad turnaround by around 16 hours to keep both in 2023 UTC (unlikely but not impossible, SpaceX need that for next year's demand), something like this:

Starlink 6-32 (Dec. 23 ~04:00 UTC) -> Ovzon-3 (~Dec. 27 ~21:00 UTC) -> Starlink 6-35? (~Dec. 31 ~04:00 UTC)

If Ovzon-3 slips into January then things are more possible:

Starlink 6-32 (Dec. 23 ~04:00 UTC) -> Starlink 6-35? (~Dec. 27 ~04:00 UTC) -> Starlink 6-36? (~Dec. 31 ~04:00 UTC)

Bottom line: there's no schedule slipping margin for pad 40, and 2 days each for the 39A and 4E (West coast) launches, if we want to still talk about it. Otherwise we can send this thread to the fridge and come back at least around late summer 2024 to discuss.

[Robotbeat]

I'm now hoping they get 99 or less so we don't need to rehash this lol

[catdlr]

I'm now hoping they get 99 or less so we don't need to rehash this lol

No loss, here is another accomplishment that could also be counted as a win. Even though it's a global count, it's been a stellar year for SpaceX.  We all need to step away and enjoy the holidays and start over again on Jan 1st.

https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1736962484131484070

[Brigantine]

With the lull finally gone and current count standing at 92 Falcons + 2 Starships, let's have a final review for the shot in the 2023 calendar year:

TL;DR: Chance of 100 Falcon 9 & Heavy launches is out.
100 SpaceX launches including Starship is still on - just barely.

Another bit of trivia, we're also currently on 94 booster landings in 2023, and if everything else succeeds, but Launch B is delayed, 2023 will be the year of 100 landings

It's doubtful whether there will be another year with landings > launches, with SH still far off re-use and F9 eventually reaching the end of their service lives.