New market - please bet in it instead:
Each option resolves YES if the next (2nd) Starship full stack flight test successfully completes that milestone (successfully requires it to be intact and on a nominal trajectory). NO otherwise (i.e. if it fails during or before completing that milestone).
(Use sort by high % to show the options in order)
See the flight test timeline at https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2
Examples and more detailed definitions:
"Nominal trajectory" means within normal or acceptable limits to complete the planned test. If SpaceX calls out on the broadcast that it's nominal, that should also be sufficient.
If Starship reaches MaxQ and the test has been proceeding nominally up to that point, but explodes 2 seconds later, MaxQ still resolves YES.
If Starship's trajectory is non-nominal at the point of MECO, resolves NO regardless of whether the engines shut off or not.
If MECO is attempted but the engines fail to shut down, and the rocket explodes before they can successfully shut down, MECO resolves NO.
Note that the planned MECO is "most engines cut off", not all - Starship will be doing a hot staging
Second stage engine start (SES) does not require stage separation to complete successfully, as long as the engines ignite successfully. At least half the engines must ignite to count as a success.
For stage separation, if SpaceX calls out second stage nominal, that should be enough for YES. If the engines light but the second stage explodes instead of separating, that's a NO. If the engines light and the rocket starts spinning unrecoverably out of control during stage separation, it's a NO even if it does actually separate.
Second stage touchdown resolves YES if Starship reaches the target landing area and is intact at the moment it hits the surface, even if it is an uncontrolled crash. Same for booster touchdown.
The second stage and booster boostback/landing milestones are independent. I.e. the second stage milestones only require the second stage to successfully complete that milestone, it doesn't matter what happens to the booster; and vice versa with the booster milestones.
1,000
3.00FYI: I plan to close this market for trading before the launch (and resolve it after). The other market https://manifold.markets/jack/how-far-will-the-2nd-starship-test will remain open for live trading. (This is because the other one has less risk of ambiguous scenarios)
Which one(s) do I bet No on if I think the top half of the ship will explode after it did its "orbital" trajectory (or whatever) and started going back down toward the ground, but before it actually reaches the ground?
Is it just "Second Stage Touchdown (Soft or Hard)"?
@Eliza Yes that is only one after explosion on re-entry.
Of course you could also bet yes on:
Second stage engine cutoff (SECO)
Second stage engine start (SES)
Stage separation
Max Q
Main engine cut-off (MECO)
Launch (clears the launch tower)
not as profitable as betting on Second stage touchdown (hard or soft) but there is less risk as there is fewer things before that might go wrong.
You didn't say what you expect to happen to bottom two thirds. the booster.
@ChristopherRandles I have no idea about any of them, I am trying to ask questions that will help people navigate the options! 😂
@Eliza Ahh, then perhaps you want this timeline from
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2
HR/MIN/SEC EVENT (IF ALL GOES ACCORDING TO PLAN)
00:00:02 Liftoff
00:00:52 Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket)
00:02:39 Booster MECO (most engines cut off)
00:02:41 Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation)
00:02:53 Booster boostback burn startup
00:03:47 Booster boostback burn shutdown00:06:18Booster is transonic
00:06:30 Booster landing burn startup
00:06:48 Booster landing burn shutdown
00:08:33 Starship engine cutoff
01:17:21 Starship entry
01:28:43 Starship is transonic
01:30:00 An exciting landing!
Based on discussion of edge cases, I am considering trying to change the criteria from:
resolves YES if it successfully completes the milestone, where successfully includes being on a nominal trajectory
to something like:
resolves YES if it completes the milestone without exploding
This is a fairly important change, so I don't want to change this market, I'll just make a new market for it.
Let me know if there's any feedback on this.
"For stage separation, ... If the engines light and the rocket starts spinning out of control during stage separation, it's a NO even if it does actually separate."
If there is some unintended spin but separation occurs and second stage manages to control the spin but after doing this there isn't enough fuel to reach target so FTS is used, perhaps more to do with booster engine outs than the spin, is this a successful stage separation?
Or does everything before stage separation have to work? e.g. if 4 boosters engines fail and this means it can't reach target so second stage fts is deployed, does everything bar clears tower and maybe maxQ fail? or can we still have successful MECO, boostback burn etc. ?
@ChristopherRandles Hmm, good questions. My previous attempt to define this ("successfully means it appears to be operating nominally at that point, including being on a nominal trajectory") isn't entirely clear on the first scenario and it seems like we could go either way. Before I make a ruling, what do people think or suggest on this?
For the second scenario where it can't reach target, "being on a nominal trajectory" would presumably be false and therefore everything starting from when it was on a non-nominal trajectory would resolve NO. But do we know with sufficient precision when it is or isn't on a nominal trajectory? That might be a problem.
If it "starts spinning out of control", it is a no. The implication from this could be that an unexpected but controllable spin can still be a yes.
The nominal trajectory would still seem to be required. It seems possible that we may have to wait months(?) for a report which says when it went off nominal trajectory. That potentially isn't ideal but not sure that is easy to change so maybe just hope it becomes clear quickly or better isn't an issue because it reaches zone near Hawaii.
"The implication from this could be that an unexpected but controllable spin can still be a yes." - yeah, I agree with that.
The nominal trajectory would still seem to be required. It seems possible that we may have to wait months(?) for a report which says when it went off nominal trajectory. That potentially isn't ideal but not sure that is easy to change so maybe just hope it becomes clear quickly or better isn't an issue because it reaches zone near Hawaii.
Hmm, didn't realize it could take a long time for that. I had intended it to be a relatively broad criteria. Now that I think about it, maybe if it goes outside of the acceptable range it's likely they'd activate the flight termination system so that would be a sufficient criteria to look at?
I think it's still early enough to change it as long as it doesn't change the meaning too much.
@jack Months may well be an unlikely worst case. Could well be some initial discussion on what went wrong within ~ a week. Also nominal trajectory callouts after major events might well be all we need if it has clearly gone wrong before the next event.
I could be wrong but I have gained impression from discussions that the FTS is not too worried about wrong altitude just whether it is likely to go outside corridor of warning areas. So it could be off nominal trajectory but the FTS not activate until sometime later. So I suspect that isn't ideal.
Ok, sounds good. I drafted some updates to the description accordingly. I think I'll leave the "nominal trajectory" requirement but will not require that there's sufficient fuel to complete the mission, for example, since requirements like that could make tracing the cause of the fault even more tricky in edge case scenarios.
I kind of want to remove the nominal trajectory requirement to reduce ambiguous situations. But that would change the criteria a bit much I think.
My original motivation was to avoid situations where a failure in e.g. stage separation doesn't immediately cause the rocket to explode, but does obviously result in the rocket exploding shortly thereafter. Not sure if there's a better way to capture that in the criteria.
I just added some notes on "Second stage engine start (SES)" and added "Stage separation" as well. Because of the hot staging the sequence of events here will be a bit different than usual - the second stage engines light and then the stages separate. Let me know if there are tweaks to improve the clarity of the criteria for those (or for anything else).