The tree · Launch · Happens to the world · Could be decided within 1 to 5 years
A heavy launcher recovers both of its stages intact from one orbital flight
Full reusability means the booster and the ship both come back to be flown again. The booster has been caught at its launch tower since 2024; the ship, which comes back from orbital speed, had only been landed in the ocean as of July 2026. A first tower catch was planned for late August 2026, then deferred: on August 20th, 2026 the company's chief executive said the catch would come "in a few months", and the flight itself slipped to no earlier than mid-September. The first flight to bring both stages back intact is the day the cost curve everything else assumes actually starts.
The test: what counts as it having happened
On a single flight that reached orbit, a launch vehicle rated for at least fifty tonnes to low Earth orbit has both its first stage and its second stage physically retrieved (caught or landed) and confirmed by the operator as capable of a second flight without structural rebuild, confirmed by independent observation of the recoveries. A stage that lands intact and then sinks, or is retrieved but written off, does not count.
Settled by: The operator's flight record and post-flight statement, and independent observation
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 95% | 96% | 97% | 98% | 98% |
Each column is a different guess at how long I live, from current trends (baseline) to open-ended. The number is the chance this happens before that deadline, assuming everything it depends on happens first. As of September 19th, 2026.
Why these numbers: Booster catch routine since 2024 and the ship catch deferred by months, not years; the residual risk is a program cancellation, not physics.
What this one is worth
If this happened tomorrow and nothing else changed, the chance that I live and work off Earth by 2071 goes from 0.5% to 0.4% (too small to tell apart from chance). If it turned out no, the same number goes to 0.0% (−0.5 points).
| Longevity scenario | baseline2071 ± 8 | moderate2080 | strong2095 | radical2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The headline as it stands | 0.5% | 1.2% | 3.8% | 11% | 15% |
| If this settled yes now | 0.4% | 1.4% | 3.8% | 11% | 15% |
| If this settled no now | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
This is what the site says in advance, before the thing happens. When it does, the
ledger entry that records it quotes this figure beside what actually followed, so a
reader can see whether the prediction held. Worked out at the run
2026-10-11-scan by holding this step at each outcome in turn and
playing the whole tree out again, 20,000 times per
scenario. That is a throw of the dice, so a move smaller than about
0.10 points is inside the noise rather than
a finding.
What the ledger says about this step
- Starship reached orbit for the first time on September 28th, 2026, but neither stage was caught, so the launch steps stay where they were 2026-10-04 Widely reported, moved nothing · this step was read against it and did not move · found by the weekly web scan
- Forty-one steps had their criteria tightened so that two readers would agree when each has happened, with no number moved for that alone 2026-09-20 The tree itself changed
The last 3 checks
Once a week the tree is read against the news, node by node, against the test above. Open a line to see what that week held. Every check ever made on this node is on the Radar page.
-
2026-11-01 Nothing new
On October 20th, 2026 SpaceX said Flight 15 (targeted November 2026, licence not yet issued) will attempt to catch both stages, which is a plan and not the event. No ship has been caught and no post-flight statement exists as of November 1st, 2026.
-
2026-10-25 Nothing new
Flight 15, with the first planned ship catch attempt, has not flown and no launch date or FAA licence for it was found; the ledger's earlier reading that neither stage of Flight 14 was caught is unchanged. Musk put the odds of a first-try ship catch at 50 to 60 percent; no ship has been recovered.
-
2026-10-18 Nothing new
Flight 15, with the first ship catch attempt, has not flown. On October 10th, 2026 Musk said it is four to six weeks away, probably a little before Thanksgiving, so the earlier no-earlier-than October 19th, 2026 planning date has slipped to November; no ship has been recovered.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-19 | resolution | 'recovered intact ... returned undamaged', with 'heavy' undefined and no requirement that the flight reached orbit | physically retrieved and confirmed capable of a second flight without structural rebuild, on a launcher rated for at least fifty tonnes to low Earth orbit, on a flight that reached orbit | Step 27 outside-model review, items 15 and 55 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md): 'undamaged' was unverifiable and a ship that lands intact and then sinks would have counted; a payload floor defines heavy here and on the hundred-flights node. A reflight requirement was declined as a later milestone the hundred-flights node tests. Decided September 19th, 2026. |
Notes
Checked September 8th, 2026: no upper-stage catch was attempted in August 2026; the attempt was deferred by a few months and the flight slipped to mid-September at the earliest. Still open. Re-check at the first quarterly scan.
Think this estimate is wrong?
Here's how to tell me, and
what happens next.
The record itself is data/L-launch.toml in the public repository.