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SpaceX Plans to Start Launching Rockets Every Two To Three Weeks (fortune.com)
Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, plans to launch its Falcon 9 rockets every two to three weeks, its fastest rate since starting launches in 2010, once a new launch pad is put into service in Florida next week. From a report: The ambitious plan comes only five months after a SpaceX rocket burst into flames on the launch pad at the company's original launch site in Florida. SpaceX, controlled by billionaire Elon Musk, has only launched one rocket since then, in mid-January. "We should be launching every two to three weeks," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in an interview on Monday.
That's the thing, there really is. With launch prices down, satellite tech advancing fast, and a rapidly growing middle class, there's a large demand for commercial launches right now, and it only looks to grow.
My problem with SpaceX's plan isn't the market - that's solid. My concern is that the faster you want to launch, the less you can tolerate failures. The time a failure leaves you unable to launch for is independent of how fast you're launching. The faster you launch, the sooner the time between failures. So an increasingly large percent of your time becomes time down due to failures. The only way to overcome this is to correspondingly boost reliability. Want to 10x launch rates? Better 10x reliability. It's a tall order. SpaceX is already on the low end on reliability (not terrible by rocketry standards, but not great), so they already have a deficit to overcome.
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.