Elon Musk talked about launching every 2 days in 2024 instead of every three days now. Scott Walter and friends have looked at how VERY difficult it will be for SpaceX to achieve that launch rate. So how might they be able to do it?
Here is the pace of turnarounds for 2023.
The drones ships could in theory return in 32 hours for the 500 kilometers. The best possible total return is about 6 days, because of delays in ports. The shortest return has been 8 days. This would mean a maximum of 45 returns per year for each drone ship. There could be the need for two new drone ships and crews to reach higher launch rates.
The pace of production of the second stage needs to be increased. The second stage is not recovered.
Here are the faster rates of turnarounds and the need to produce a second stage every 2.75 days.
If turnaround times are optimized and a second stage is made every 2 days and more drones ships are added. It could be possible to get SpaceX with mainly Falcon 9 up to about 220-280 launches per year if second stages are made every 1.5 days.
I hear a lot of speculation about Falcon cadence limiters. Upper stage production, range availability, pad turnaround, weather, etc…
But the one I keep hearing the most is drone ships. People especially seem to think that SpaceX either needs more drone ships or to lean into…
— Ozan Bellik (@BellikOzan) November 8, 2023
Drone ships stay on station, and an airship picks up one booster from each platform, and returns them directly to the apron outside the hanger. No dockside ops.
— Martin (@FullOfStarships) November 8, 2023
Average of 4.5 days between launches for the last 10 launches out of Florida. All but one of the spans was 4 days or longer. https://t.co/ZDrwjihy1j
— Ozan Bellik (@BellikOzan) November 8, 2023
My shot of the Falcon 9 making the 80th SpaceX launch of 2023 from last night enhanced by @DrKnowItAll16.
Picture was taken 150 miles west of SLC-40 over Sarasota Bay.
Olympus E-M1 MarkIII, f/4, bulb mode w/ live composition, using ISO 400. About a six minute exposure. Waited… pic.twitter.com/qfMMIYkiXY
— Scott Walter, PhD (@GoingBallistic5) November 9, 2023
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
They recently got access to SLC-6 on the west coast, but that needs to be rebuilt.
Definitely need more ships though.
Launch pads are becoming the bottle neck. Infrastructure requires a long turnaround if adversity happens. So… go build.
It seems to me that increasing the launch rate is just a matter of adding more capacity.