Yes there are a total of 69 (Nice!) total raptor engine burns planned for Starship flight 8. This is the same trajectories as flights 6 & 7.
33 - Stage 1 liftoff
13 - boost back burn
13 - booster landing
6 - Starship main burn
1 - in space relight
3 - starship landing
All = 69!
To be included towards the count an engine must light/relight and complete its intended burn. Theres some ambiguity as to when exactly certain engines are supposed to shut down e.g. towards the end of the Starship launch burn. I think in these cases previous successes like flights 5/6 can serve as examples and if it looks anything like those within a few seconds that will be good.
If the number of planned engine lights/relights gets changed I will switch this to how many engines will not burn successfully which is really what the question is asking and I think how most will interpret it. For right now sticking with this for the joke. Fingers crossed this doesn't happen, I’ve never heard of this guy Murphy and his ridiculous law.
Example Market Resolutions:
Flight 5*: 0
Flight 6: 69 (Nice!)
Flight 7: 58
*flight only targeted 68 engine burns because they did not attempt an in space engine burn. This would trigger the above market change.
If you have any questions or concerns feel free to comment otherwise goodluck!
Update 2025-26-01 (PST): - The market question is now to count engines that will not burn successfully instead of those that do burn successfully. (AI summary of creator comment)
1,000@RyanTyznar
Don't the 3 centre engines stay on from launch through hot staging and through to end of the boost-back burn? So it is only 66 engine lights/burns planned.
For flight 7 I see
33 for launch
9 for boostback burn (13 planned 12 were in use but centre 3 still lit so only a potential 10 lit for this burn and one did not light)
13 booster landing burn (reducing to 3)
55 total if saying ship burns did not run to completion and so do not count
6 starship engines for main burn
61 total if counting engine lights
Sorry to spoil your 69 count.
If it is not going to be 69 perhaps you should edit answers 69 to 0, 68 to 1, 67 to 2 and so on and add a "not" to question title?
If a ship engine shut down 4 seconds early and software kept other 5 on for ~a second longer than planned so nominal trajectory reached, would this count as a failed engine burn? I am thinking it might not be obvious whether this was planned or not.
@ChristopherRandles ahh you're absolutely right I've botched the math entirely. I’ll likely switch to the subtractive version as stated previously. Give me a day or two so i can take the time to make sure everything is right.
To answer your last question if we find out for certain it was unintended then it counts as a failure. From first approximation by watching the live stream I don't plan on calling anything a failure within that close of the intended burn without confirmation.
I hope you agree that seems prudent. Im just trying to avoid arguing over engine burns being failures within such minute tolerances. Especially with there being so many.
@DanHomerick It was not intentional, the SpaceX website (https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-7) says:
Following a successful hot-stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn, with 12 of the planned 13 Raptor engines relighting, to begin its return to the launch site.
I will switch this to how many engines will not burn successfully which is really what the question is asking and I think how most will interpret it
To be clear this means you will change each answer to the relative delta (as compared to the current flight 7 trajectory) correct?