Today (August 26th) could be the day when SpaceX successfully launches its #10 Starship test flight, postponed from August 24th for a technical problem and again on August 25th because of bad weather. But SpaceX president, Gwynne Shotwell, is predicting a rapid increase in Starship’s launch rate predicting around 400 launches over the next four years.

Her comments were made well ahead of this week’s launch, and unsaid was any comment on some critics who say “first, they have to stop Starship exploding and getting one completely successful mission”.

Shotwell made the “400” statement in November 2024 when she suggested that the – then – 400 launches on its ultra-reliable Falcon 9 rocket and the development work on Starship represented a “tipping point”. “We just passed 400 launches on Falcon, and I would not be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches in the next four years,” Shotwell said at the Baron Investment Conference in New York City. “We want to fly it a lot.”

“Starship obsoletes Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule,” she said. “Now, we are not shutting down Dragon, and we are not shutting down Falcon. We’ll be flying that for six to eight more years, but ultimately, people are going to want to fly on Starship. It’s bigger. It’s more comfortable. It will be less expensive. And we will have flown it so many more times,” she told delegates at the Baron conference.

But first up is a successful Test Flight #10.

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Categories: Articles, Satellite

Tags: Falcon 9, Gwynne Shotwell, spacex, starship