Which one comes first?
Starship / Superheavy: Both stages from the same launch, with the Starship making it to space. They both have to be intact and at rest. Details the same as these questions:
/chrisjbillington/will-spacex-land-a-spaceflown-stars
/chrisjbillington/will-spacex-land-a-super-heavy-boos
Starliner: Must launch with crew and lift off intact.
The market is overestimating starship or doesn't realize that it takes landing both stages to resolve. Booster Catch (already a bonkers and impossibly difficult task)might happen soon enough but, they plan on catching both the booster and the ship with the chopsticks for reusability. I don't think that's happening until V2.
Starliner is messed up, but just might be able to pull another one off if the first one is mostly a success.
@notarealuser So, how soon do you think it will happen?
/EvanDaniel/by-which-flight-will-spacex-success
I was kinda skeptical of how soon that market thinks it will happen, but people also think they'll have a second tower by ~ start of 2025:
/EvanDaniel/by-when-will-a-second-starship-supe
I'm not sure whether I expect Starliner to be cancelled, but I definitely expect further delays on the next launch. I'd be quite surprised by a Q1 2025 launch, and even H1 2025 seems in jeopardy to me.
I try to think in months, rather than calendar years.
Do I think NASA will schedule a Starliner mission to launch in the next 12 months? Maybe, but unlikely. 20%?
Meanwhile, in the next 12 months I expect SpaceX to do 4 to 6 more test flights. Let's call it 5. Will they land both? They'd have to solve SS heat shield issues and have a very precise reentry, and be comfortable with risking the tower. Combined, very unlikely, 5%.
How about 18 months? Starliner: 40%. SpaceX: 25%
24 months? Starliner: 66%, SpaceX: 50%
Hmm. Super unclear. Maybe I shouldn't bet yet.
@JohnTackman what's funny is that despite the belly-flop tests using landing legs, and despite lunar and martian missions needing legs, it never crossed my mind that they could fall back to using them for earth landings too (if a tower catch starts looking too difficult).
There's already a market for it, even:
https://manifold.markets/Mqrius/will-starship-land-on-legs-on-earth?r=RGFuSG9tZXJpY2s