way more!
@F-22Raptor @Hamartia Antidote @Nuffle What in the world is Musk up to?
That's Musk's ambition. To be honest, you can't trust exactly what Musk says, but someone like Gwynne Shotwell saying that could foresee up to 400 launches in the next four years lends some credibility to that claim. What really matters is that if it's 400 launches in the next four years, a cadence of 100 launches per year for Starship, what's relevant is the payload lifting capacity rather than the number of launches per se.
For example, the total mass sent into orbit throughout history is about 18,000 tons (data for August 2024), of which 4,000 tons were from SpaceX. 400 Starship V2 launches with a payload of 100 tons would easily double the capacity with 40,000 tons sent. This chart here is going to skyrocket:
There are still a few things left to do, they are trying to increase the permission limit to 25 launches (currently it is 5), and a recent interview with NASA's HLS head said they want biweekly flights for a total of 25 per year. So that's probably the upper limit of what might be possible next year. But they also aimed for something like 10 flights this year and ultimately only have 4, so next year will probably be somewhere between 8 and 20, depending on how well everything goes.
One interesting thing is that one of the missions Starship could perform would be completely new:
While Starlink is becoming a moneymaker for SpaceX, the company’s president believes that Starship will have a bigger long-term impact.
spacenews.com
One example she offered was using Starship to launch a satellite. If that satellite was not working, she explained, the satellite could be brought back into Starship’s payload bay to either be repaired or returned to Earth.
In addition to potential orbital cargo launch missions, Starship could recover defective and deactivated satellites. This is another type of mission that would add even more value to Starship.
In addition, missions with the USSF, commercial launches ranging from satellites to the construction of space stations, missions to the Moon and Mars that also require launches of tankers will increase the number of Starship launches.