Can SpaceX launch Starship Three Times Per Day?
Image credit: SpaceX
SpaceX announced the desired launch cadence for its yet-to-be-operational Starship launch system a few times during the past few months: three launches…per day. However, history hosts a few companies that have demonstrated that it is much easier to announce the "XX" capability of a non-existent rocket than build one.
Another consideration is that SpaceX founder Elon Musk is known for embellishing his SpaceX pronouncements just a teensy bit. With that understanding, is SpaceX's goal realistic? After all, a year's worth of three Starship launches per day results in 1,095 launches, a 512% increase from 2022's global launch total.
SpaceX Launch History: Increasing the Average
SpaceX’s increases in its launches over the years may encourage some to believe the Starship hype. The company increased its annual launches by 1,933% from 2013 (three launches) to 61 launched in 2022.
SpaceX also established a 2023 goal to conduct 100 launches, 64% more than in 2022. The company averaged approximately 5 launches per month in 2022 but must increase the 2023 average to approximately 9 per month to hit its 100-launch goal.
With seven launches under its belt for January 2023, the company is ahead of its January 2022 launches by three. SpaceX launched more rockets in January 2023 than Arianespace's 2022 total (five—including one failure). However, it falls one launch short of ULA's 2022 total launches (eight).
SpaceX is slightly behind the monthly launch average required to reach 100 launches in 2023. Even if it maintains a seven-launch per-month average, the resulting 2023 launch total, 84, would still be impressive.
Still, three launches per day is a downgrade from Elon Musk's initial Starship launch prediction. In 2019, he shared that a Super Heavy booster (Starship's first stage) could launch as often as 20 times per day, while Starship (the upper stage) would launch as often as four times every day.
However, three Starship launches per day is a significant increase from SpaceX's 2023 goal. In addition, Starship's projected launches would outnumber all launches conducted in 2022 (179), which it would equal in 60 days.
However, if the first successful Starship launch, orbit, re-entry, and landing occurred today, it is unlikely SpaceX could launch half of the 1,095 launches for the remaining year. The company's inability to meet its goal is not because of challenges SpaceX faces with Starship's technology, such as heat tiles. It is not because customers will not be ready to use Starship's 100–150-ton payload capability.
Instead, external support will not be ready.
Ranges of Challenges
Whenever SpaceX conducts a launch, it relies on range support. Vandenberg Space Force Base in California runs the Western Range. The Eastern Range in Florida relies on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Both ranges started 2022 with a Department of Defense (DoD) Office of the Inspector General report warning that neither range's older technology can reliably cope with launch increases. It noted that both rely on aging equipment, some no longer manufactured. (eBay was a parts source.)
The report cautioned that the outdated equipment would hobble anticipated launch surges. Of course, the concept of a surge indicates relief in launch activity will occur in the form of an ebb. However, if SpaceX succeeds with Starship, the surge will become a tsunami that plateaus.
While equipment modernization benefits both ranges and curtails their eBay parts replacement strategy, there is no guarantee that SpaceX will succeed in launching 1,095 Starships in a year as it has not successfully launched one yet. The Space Force is probably aware of SpaceX's plans, but it would not be reasonable for the service to upgrade its technology solely on SpaceX's projection.
Both ranges use autonomous flight safety systems (AFSS), a system required of companies wishing to continue using the ranges after October 2025. Despite the upgrade, neither will be ready for 1,095 Starship launches.
One reason is that a Space Force contract to implement range operations modification/modernization efforts will not be awarded until March 2024. That has not stopped the ranges from attempting to get ahead of the launch activity increases.
The 45th Space Wing's launch flexibility has improved its Eastern Range operations as companies adopt AFSS. Before shifting to AFSS, the range might support one launch every 48 hours. With the new system installed, it can support launches in less than every 24 hour from different launch pads. From SpaceNews:
"We were able to go from locking down the range for 72 to 96 hours to being able to support multiple launches in a single day," said Wayne Monteith, associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration and a former commander of the 45th Space Wing.
While that ability is significant, the Eastern Range did not use it often in 2022 (a record year). Instead, it supported 57 launch attempts that year, averaging about a launch per week.
If that weekly launch cadence is representative, then the 1,095 Starship launches would be a 1,821% increase in annual Eastern Range launches. However, the Eastern Range's projected launches for 2027 are 119, far short of Starship's projected launches.
It is unclear whether people running the Eastern Range have run those numbers, but some see the potential increases. For example, earlier in 2023, a U.S. Space Force general noted:
"Two years ago, I started making the circuits saying we plan on 100, 200, 300 launches in several years. And I got lots and lots of eyebrows," Purdy said. "We still plan on that multiple-hundred launches in a few years. So now we're trying to re-architect all our processes, our business processes, our technology processes, and all the data flows in order to support that."
Later, the general highlighted that those numbers include anticipated launch activity from Blue Origin, ULA, Relativity Space, and SpaceX. In the meantime, SpaceX is near the end of constructing a Starship launch tower at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. Shortly, the Eastern Range will be hard-pressed to support 300 launches annually. Starship will not be able to exceed the range's capacity until the range upgrades again.
Another potential launch bottleneck, range processes, will slow down potential users, with more processes to be identified as the number of launches increases. For example, before range support begins, launch companies must deal with the unexciting process of submitting launch range dates (range adjudication) to the range. That process barely keeps up with the current slew of launch date requests, which are not just from SpaceX. From that same SpaceNews article:
"Other tweaks involve procedures. Purdy said each of the 297 requests for a launch date the range received in the last year took "multiple hours" to process. "The range adjudication process is one of our biggest pain points right now," he said.
According to the article, launch adjudication and other process inefficiencies are being "tweaked." However, it is doubtful that the fixes will significantly aid the range in dealing with SpaceX's potential launch increase. While every little tweak will count, the Eastern Range will ultimately look at everything it does to increase its launch capacity.
As for launching Starship from the Western range, SpaceX noted in an Environmental Assessment that it will not launch from there. From the assessment: "VSFB does not provide the required trajectories."
Were SpaceX to change its mind, it is doubtful the Western Range would be able to support potentially drastic increases in launch activities. The Western Range supported 15 successful launches in 2022, 13 of which were SpaceX rockets. Those 15 launches were eight shy of the 23 the Western Range projected for 2022. The Western Range anticipates it will support as many as 38 launches by 2027—still not enough to support Starship's potential annual high launch rates.
However, each range is at least implementing modernization efforts to support their launch customers, with relatively short timelines in which to do so. They want to support launch customers and generally appear responsive to them.
On the other hand, SpaceX must also deal with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) if it wants to ramp up its Starship launches.
Safety and Process Trump SpaceX Goals
The FAA is supposed to protect the public and accomplishes its job through launch licensing, reviews, and other tools. It is a slow and cautious government bureaucracy. Undoubtedly, the FAA's launch vehicle licensing will require some revamps as Starship launches increase.
However, the more significant challenge for the FAA is that it must somehow integrate those 1,000+ Starship launches with airspace activities such as airline flights. It has worked on some projects that can help quickly clear busy airspace. But will it implement those projects to deal with three (or more) daily launches coming from the Eastern Range?
The FAA is notoriously slothlike in implementing its latest air traffic monitoring system, NextGen. It started with NextGen improvements in 2007, and the system won't be finished until 2030. So while NextGen might help the FAA move air traffic around quickly to clear the airspace for space launches, would SpaceX's launch increases spur the FAA to move quickly to a NextNextGen?
However, as seen with NextGen, the FAA is not quick. Because its mandate protects the public, it will not accelerate a process or program in response to SpaceX's demands.
The FAA already demonstrated its propensity to ignore SpaceX's concerns while conducting its programmatic environmental assessment of the company's Boca Chica site in Texas. That dogged adherence to process means that SpaceX's goal for launching a Starship three times a day will remain only that—a goal—until the FAA (or some other government agency) implements a system that can handle the increased launches.
Like the ranges, the FAA is probably aware of SpaceX's Starship plans but taking a "wait and see" approach.
Unrealized Solutions and Low Expectations
SpaceX may have a solution to these challenges: offshore launch platforms. The company began refitting two deepwater oil drilling rigs as launch and landing platforms for its Starship system in 2021. Named Deimos and Phobos (after the moons of Mars), Musk initially stated that Starship would launch from one of the "ocean spaceports" sometime in 2022.
However, despite initial activities surrounding those platforms, work on them appears to have paused. Various guesses have been floated as to why that might be, but the pause indicates that the launch platforms will not be ready in 2023.
However, even if the platforms were ready, it is unclear how the FAA would view them. It likely would argue that even if the platforms were beyond U.S. waters, the fact that a U.S. company is operating them would make them subject to the FAA's rules. There would also be a need for range support, as there is plenty of air and ship traffic that would be impacted by several Starship launches each day in the Caribbean.
Another launch alternative for Starship appears to be SpaceX's Starbase, the Starship system's test launch and landing facility in Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX completed building the system's launch tower in 2021.
However, the most relevant reason why Starbase will not be supporting three Starship launches per day is that SpaceX proposed in the Environmental Assessment that it would launch Starship from there up to five times per year. Additionally, Musk has suggested that noise considerations might encourage the company to launch Starships from offshore platforms. Both make increases in Starbase's launch cadence unlikely.
It is clear that it is unrealistic to expect a Starship to launch three times a day in the next four to five years. The Eastern Range cannot support that tempo and is not planning to support more than ~120 launches four years from now. The FAA does not appear to be ready for the increased launch operations. Alternative launch locations, such as SpaceX's ocean spaceports, are not ready, and the company's Starbase will not significantly contribute towards achieving that goal.
If the company successfully launches Starship into orbit, then perhaps SpaceX will get there, but only eventually. Everyone must catch up, including SpaceX, as it brings its ocean platforms online.
The company’s goal might be achievable, but not anytime soon.
John Holst is the Editor/Analyst of Ill-Defined Space, dedicated to analysis of activities, policies, and businesses in the space sector.
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