Claims

Promise · Their own work or organisation

“Good Starship SN8 static fire! Aiming for first 15km / ~50k ft altitude flight next week.”

Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, own X post · 24 November 2020 · Post by @elonmusk on X, 2020-11-24 (X)

SpaceX aims to fly Starship SN8 on its first flight to about 15 km (~50,000 ft) altitude the week after 2020-11-24.

Mostly false False in substance, right in a detail.

Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.

What would count as true or false

True: Starship SN8 actually lifted off on its high-altitude test flight, aimed at roughly 12.5 to 15 km, between 2020-11-24 and 2020-12-06. Mostly true: it flew in that window and the target or reached altitude differed slightly from ~15 km. Mostly false: SN8 made the flight, but after 2020-12-06; or the only activity in the window was launch attempts that were scrubbed or aborted without liftoff. False: no such flight took place in the window and SN8 never flew to high altitude, or the flight came much later.

Evidence

1. SpaceX’s Starship achieves most objectives in mesmerizing test flight Spaceflight Now · 9 December 2020

   “The 164-foot-tall (50-meter) Starship test vehicle — designated Serial Number 8, or SN8 — took off at 4:45 p.m. CST (5:45 p.m. EST; 2245 GMT) Wednesday from SpaceX’s rocket development and test facility at Boca Chica, located on the Texas Gulf Coast east of Brownsville.”

2. SpaceX’s Starship achieves most objectives in mesmerizing test flight Spaceflight Now · 9 December 2020

   “The Starship SN8 test vehicle slowly climbed off the launch pad, trailing a flickering flame of super-heated exhaust, and soared high into the atmosphere, targeting an altitude of 41,000 feet, or 12.5 kilometers, higher than most commercial airliners fly.”

3. Space Sunday: the flight of SN8 and a round-up modemworld.me · 14 December 2020

   “On Wednesday, December 9th, SpaceX Starship prototype SN8 finally took to the skies in what was to be a very mixed ascent to around 12.5 km altitude and return to Earth.”

4. SpaceX's Starship SN8 Aborted Automatically Due to Raptor Engines Interesting Engineering · 8 December 2020

   “After a tension-filled day of waiting, SpaceX’s Starship SN8 prototype rocket auto-aborted 1.3 seconds before liftoff from Boca Chica base.”

Reasoning

Independent reports date Starship SN8's high-altitude test flight to Wednesday, December 9, 2020, with a target altitude of about 12.5 km (E1, E2, E3). E4 reports an earlier launch attempt that aborted automatically 1.3 seconds before liftoff. The flight did take place, but it came after the 2020-12-06 deadline. The criteria count a late flight as mostly false.

Cite this claim

Elon Musk, “SpaceX aims to fly Starship SN8 on its first flight to about 15 km (~50,000 ft) altitude the week after 2020-11-24.” (said 24 November 2020). Verdict: mostly false. Reliability API, claim c_62f168fc6348, method 0.1.0+c876030c. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_62f168fc6348