Operational will mean that a launch has happened from the tower (full stack or just booster or ship by itself), or a catch (of either booster or ship) has been attempted. "Attempted" will mean that it was announced as the plan for the flight and the flight launched, even if the flight was not successful or the catch was aborted.
All dates are "on or before".
Current plans are that this launch tower will also be at Starbase, however that is not required. An operational tower at Cape Canaveral or elsewhere would also count.
Related question with different criteria:
/Blomfilter/will-starbase-mount-a-starship-on-a
Update 2025-09-09 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): - A second tower must be a new, distinct tower; a rebuild or repair of the first tower does not count.
The first tower may be non-operational when the second tower becomes operational.
1,000
3.00Unless they decide to overhaul the first tower before finishing the second, I believe the second tower is effectively a blocker for flight 12. I think this is undervalued.
@Eliza https://manifold.markets/EvanDaniel/by-when-will-a-second-starship-supe#xz8pgnbzrbi
Not a rebuild or repair of the first tower. First tower is allowed to be non-operational. Hopefully that answers the question?
@EvanDaniel Okay, so if the 2nd tower is on a new physical location, even if they moved 99% of the components of the 1st tower to the new location, that counts as a new tower? Sounds good.
@Eliza Plans look like they will keep pad 1 tower, demolish launch mount and build flame trench and new launch mount. That seems like same "launch tower" to me even if launch mount is different and in a slightly different place and tower requires different chopsticks and quick disconnects etc. I expect all this to take a year or more.
(I suppose catches could be done by tower 1 during this time, but it makes no difference to this question.)
Pad 2 highly likely to be used for launches during that year+ rebuild time.
There are potentially at least a couple of possibilities where flight 12 on this question does not resolve yes: One would be an explosion at pad 2 but it would have to be major to cause pad 1 to be ready before pad 2 and pad 1 to be used before the Florida launch site. Another possibility would be some long delay to pad 2 or booster 18 such that they decide to launch ship 39 a v3 ship on booster 17 a v2 booster. A specially made HSR might allow them to fix them together.
@ChristopherRandles I removed the creator only restriction. Feel free to add more options if there are any you're interested in!
No launch before 1 March
8th flight:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-8
preparing to launch as soon as Monday, March 3.
The upcoming flight will fly the same suborbital trajectory as previous missions
Doubt pad B ready for a catch but even if ready there is no launch to catch on or before 1st March 2025. No worries if you want to wait a couple of days before resolving, though waiting doesn't seem necessary.
https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1893019265550496158
FCC document notes that Starship Flight 9 (after the upcoming launch) has the option of Ship returning to the launch site for a catch. Although unconfirmed by SpaceX, Flight 9 has the potential of reflying Booster 14, with Ship 35, and both returning to the launch site, with Booster returning to Pad A and Ship to Pad B.
Hopefully this is obvious from the description, but in case not:
The tower needs to either (attempt to) catch or launch something (or both). If it's functional as a catch tower, but incapable of supporting a launch, that will still count for this question (despite it being called a "launch" tower in the title). Description text takes precedent over title.
@EvanDaniel As with the dates, this is "on or before". If the second tower launches or catches flight #7, this resolves Yes. "Flight" meaning orbital(ish) flight, aka IFT-7 or whatever they're calling it by then. Hops and such presumably don't count towards the number, but might count towards the tower being operational.