The launches must be successful in that they place their payload into the intended orbit or landing zone for interplanetary bodies, unless the failure mode was directly attributable to the payload's performance itself.
I think we have to fit the same criteria to the 1st launch that we do to the 500th. I'm considering the first IFT "Not Successful", in that it didn't insert Starship into a near-orbital trajectory. Even though personally I think it was a successful data gathering flight. The guiding principle for success is something like "Did this flight prove to customers their payload will go where they want it to go?".
The launch will be considered successful if the payload is placed correctly, but the Starship or Superheavy Booster or both are intended to be recovered but are lost instead.
Essentially, will SpaceX make 500 launches that a customer would consider proves satisfactory reliability and safety of the system by Jan 1st 2030.
Related questions
As the creator is absent, I'll be clarifying resolution criteria and keeping track of what launches count for the purposes of this question being resolved by moderators in the future. This is something of a test case for new moderation policy being implemented by Manifold, that will allow moderators a more active role in clarifying questions and tracking what aspects of the criteria are satisfied already, ahead of time.
As I'm obviously trading in this market, if this turns out to be controversial, I will ask other moderators to intervene instead.
On to clarification:
A "successful launch" means any launch in which:
A Starship–Superheavy full stack lifts off from the surface of Earth under the thrust of its engines, and
Starship reaches an altitude of at least 100km, and
Starship either:
Successfully deploys or delivers a payload to its intended trajectory or destination, or
If a test flight with no payload, reaches its target trajectory or destination - disregarding later parts of the flight pertaining only to vehicle recovery or disposal.
The last point is context-dependent:
If a test flight is attempting to land Starship on e.g the moon or on Mars, then Starship must land in one piece at the target destination to count as a success.
If a test flight is testing Earth orbital capabilities, then Starship must reach its target orbital or near-orbital trajectory, but the launch will still count as a success if it burns up on re-entry.
If a test flight is of point-to-point suborbital hops, then Starship must land in one piece at the target destination for it to count as a success. Point-to-point hops can be identified by their highly elliptical trajectories, with target perigee well inside the Earth.
In all cases it doesn't matter whether the booster survives.
Launches so far:
2023-04-20 IFT-1: didn't reach target trajectory ❌
2023-11-18 IFT-2: didn't reach target trajectory ❌
2024-03-14 IFT-3: reached target trajectory ✅
Count of successful launches so far: 1
As the creator is absent, I'll be clarifying resolution criteria and keeping track of what launches count for the purposes of this question being resolved by moderators in the future. This is something of a test case for new moderation policy being implemented by Manifold, that will allow moderators a more active role in clarifying questions and tracking what aspects of the criteria are satisfied already, ahead of time.
As I'm obviously trading in this market, if this turns out to be controversial, I will ask other moderators to intervene instead.
On to clarification:
A "successful launch" means any launch in which:
A Starship–Superheavy full stack lifts off from the surface of Earth under the thrust of its engines, and
Starship reaches an altitude of at least 100km, and
Starship either:
Successfully deploys or delivers a payload to its intended trajectory or destination, or
If a test flight with no payload, reaches its target trajectory or destination - disregarding later parts of the flight pertaining only to vehicle recovery or disposal.
The last point is context-dependent:
If a test flight is attempting to land Starship on e.g the moon or on Mars, then Starship must land in one piece at the target destination to count as a success.
If a test flight is testing Earth orbital capabilities, then Starship must reach its target orbital or near-orbital trajectory, but the launch will still count as a success if it burns up on re-entry.
If a test flight is of point-to-point suborbital hops, then Starship must land in one piece at the target destination for it to count as a success. Point-to-point hops can be identified by their highly elliptical trajectories, with target perigee well inside the Earth.
In all cases it doesn't matter whether the booster survives.
Launches so far:
2023-04-20 IFT-1: didn't reach target trajectory ❌
2023-11-18 IFT-2: didn't reach target trajectory ❌
2024-03-14 IFT-3: reached target trajectory ✅
Count of successful launches so far: 1
definitely a nitpick, but:
>Essentially, will SpaceX make 500 launches that a customer would consider proves satisfactory reliability and safety of the system by Jan 1st 2030.
seems poorly worded with respect to the actual question; I would say a 1% failure rate is generally accepted in launch systems; if SpaceX made 500 launches and 5 failed to put the load in orbit, it could be argued that this criteria is achieved.
conversely, if there were 1000 launches and 500 blew up on the pad (with the remaining 500 successfully placing the payload in orbit), I feel like this criteria is arguably not met.
"proves satisfactory reliability and safety" feels like a criteria that's off-axis from the actual question being asked here.
@Adam The creator is inactive and 2030 is a while away, but I think if moderators are considering how to resolve this question in the future, they'll just count the number of successful launches.
The detail given by the creator here seems intended to confirm that suborbital flights with no payload count, so they defined "success" as including demos that a customer would see and think "Yeah, if that were my flight, I'd be happy that it could have delivered my payload".
And whilst the customer does indeed care about the success rate, I don't think that should be considered relevant to the question, the definition of "success" should be limited to determining whether individual flights count.
@Eliza That said, it seems like this would be the current best candidate to achieve this before 2030 and the most likely to be the backbone of a "space explosion" (before 2030, at least)?
@Eliza Falcon 9 will hit that milestone in 2025, about 15 years. (Though you could make a reasonable case for including the Falcon 1 in that analysis and counting the Falcon family as a whole.) Faster than that seems not just plausible but likely. Conops is better, it sounds like the engines might be more maintainable, they have a customer that's hungry for launch capacity and cares about cost, and another with big missions requiring refueling ops and associated rapid launch cadence. They have a launch site that will prioritize their launch rate. The doubling time needed is a little faster than a year, starting from 2 launches in 2023.
Anyway, my optimism is probably unwarranted, but I'd definitely call it better odds than "completely infeasible".
I'd be shocked if it takes Starship as long to hit 500 as it does Falcon 9.
@EvanDaniel
First off, I basically know nothing about this other than what they are telling me in the other related markets. So thanks for humoring me!
> They have a launch site that will prioritize their launch rate.
I learned from one of the other markets that they have a limited number of launch opportunities per year due to several factors at play in Texas. So that is why I said "without multiple launch zones". How many years would it take to get a new launch zone set up in a place that would support more frequent launches?
How many launch sites and vehicles would be needed to reach 150-200 (?) launches in the calendar year 2029 required to hit 500 for this question?
Are there already markets about how many launches in calendar year 2024, 2025, and 2026?
It seems like they would need to reach ~100 launches per year by 2027 to get to the 500 figure? Or is there clear demand and capability for more than 200 launches per year by 2029?
What would the effect of one major setback at an early (2024-2025) point be? It looks like there are environmental and other concerns about Texas and the ship itself has still never gone to orbit(?), those seem like two possible setbacks that could cause a full year of delay or more before even starting on a true growth curve. Buying Yes assumes that there are basically zero mistakes in the next 3 years?
How many launch sites and vehicles would be needed to reach 150-200 (?) launches in the calendar year 2029 required to hit 500 for this question?
If it's all working well? One site. Maybe two towers. That's not even one launch per day! Three towers across two sites seems like a more realistic number to support that cadence, though. It depends a lot on how much on-stand work is needed between launches. Raptor and Starship are built with launch cadence in mind, with a solid experience base to inform that.
For individual vehicles? A week turnaround for a booster and month for a Starship, perhaps? Actual answer could vary a lot. But basically the fleet size doesn't need to be huge, something comparable to the Falcon 9 fleet would suffice.
Are there already markets about how many launches in calendar year 2024, 2025, and 2026?
Not enough. /Mqrius/will-starship-launch-5-times-in-202
Or is there clear demand and capability
Remember that they're talking about a lot of launches to support refueling and such. Something like 16+ launches for each HLS mission. A high-energy outer planets mission would be similar, but someone getting a payload together in time for that would be challenging.
The major customer is simply Starlink launches, likely followed by other payloads that look a lot like the current market. HLS demands the capability for that cadence, but it doesn't demand the total launch count.
Just started reading about this today. I wondered about fuel sourcing limitations..
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55800
Based on the above, 500 launches would use up (75 bcfd) less than a day of the entire US demand for natural gas averaged over a year. This does not seem to be a constraint for the market resolution itself considering the rate of increased demand.
Sorry for my limit orders bouncing @Berg, I'll have enough cash to cover them one of these days.
It's just that I set them, and then I see the state of the UFO-related markets and am basically forced to spend my cash picking up free mana there instead.
Falcon 9 is a wildly successful rocket, and has had 221 successful launches in its 13 years.
At its fastest rate so far, it had 60 successful launches in 2022.
To resolve YES, Starship would need to average more than 83 successful launches per year starting at the end of this year, which is maybe when it will have flown to orbit for the first time.
I could see it ramping up to 83 a year, but it's going to take some years to do so after the first successful flights, at which point probably 150-200 per year would be needed for the remainder of time to market close, in order to achieve 500 in total by then. So it doesn't look likely to me.
@chrisjbillington Great Points. It is a lot of flights, and going off of the Falcon 9's history it would seem unlikely that a rocket could do this. However, the reason I'm confident in a YES is that SpaceX will solve rapid reusability.
I see a path for SpaceX to be launching the same Starship on the same booster in the same day by 2027. I think this completely changes the game in terms of launch cadence. I predict we'll see 500+ flights between 2027 and 2030 alone.
@Alexf3a5 Appreciate the thoughts, and I don't discount that rapid reusability is reasonably likely to happen. But the timeframe is too tight. It will take time to ramp up to the necessary levels of reliability, to construct launchpads, acquire launch sites, etc. Launches will still be costly and so the number of launches may be demand-constrained given prices, and launch cadence will still be constrained by weather.
If you feel strongly enough about it, I'll make you a real-money bet if you're interested :).
@chrisjbillington Haha fake money is rich enough for my blood.
There are many challenges, a lot I'm probably not considering, and I thought about adding a year or two but I honestly believe SpaceX wants to get to 1000+ launches a year. I thought well if we were looking back on it after they have achieved that, would 500 in the 7 years after the first seem totally impossible?
I think the other big consideration is market readiness. Even if SpaceX can launch one Starship per day in 2027, it will take time for demand to ramp up to meet that supply. Companies don't have that kind of mass lying around waiting to be lifted to orbit, and I don't suppose they'll start making the investments in the new types of payload Starship will enable until SpaceX actually demonstrate the capability. Feels like there will be a lag of several years