@ianminds How will we measure the time of Falcon 9's retirement? The last flight, or the timing of an official announcement after the last flight?

If the former, we may only get an announcement afterwards confirming it was in fact the last flight, in which case I guess we would backdate the number of Starship launches to the date of the last Falcon flight?

Be good to clear this up in advance! I imagine it will matter.

I think it is more likely to be announced in advance of the last launch. At present we have a fair idea of which payloads are launching on Falcon 9/H for years ahead, so would likely see a lack of such planned launches. However, yes it is possible they become less and less frequent and it is still a possibility of being booked until no one has used one for a few years after the last launch. Is it possible that there is no formal announcement? Should claim state a requirement for either an announcement by SpaceX or some period of years without such a launch?

Whether it is announced before or after, I would tend to take

"Market closes at the time the last rocket from the Falcon 9-family has launched"

as really meaning that the market closes at the later of last launch and announcement that it is the last launch and is resolved to the number of Starship launches at the time of that last launch (any possibility of being brought back out of retirement is disregarded)

Perhaps it might be clearer if it was adjusted to something like:

The market closes at the later of

a) last launch, and

b) earlier of (i) announcement by SpaceX to effect that a particular launch is to be/was the last launch of any remaining falcon 9 variants without this being subsequently contradicted before any active period of the flight is completed or (ii) a period of 3? years passes without such a launch and there are no known planned flights at the end of that period.

The market resolves to the number of Starship launches at the time of the last announced (per bi above) or presumed (per bii above) last launch.

(But perhaps I am missing other possibilities that need to be clarified?)

@ianminds this makes sense, what do you think?

@chrisjbillington @ianminds

Perhaps we should also consider what if SpaceX says something like

"There are no more planned Falcon flight so this could well be the last flight."

Would we then wait for 3 years or not?

Another way of knowing the answer might be if Starship is cancelled or stops operating before Falcon 9/Heavy.

.

I suspect SpaceX will want to retire the Falcons to reduce number of launch sites they need to keep and maintain, so SpaceX will make Falcons expensive to get all customers wanting cheaper Starship launches. Human rated seems likely to keep Falcon 9s launching for a while but we will know well in advance when this is ceasing. If this is the last use we will know in advance.

Could there be some other corner case where customers want Falcon flights and not Starship which keeps them launching longer? I suspect Falcons will become so much more expensive that whatever the issue it will be possible to work around the issue in some manner with a less expensive Starship. Not impossible but unlikely.

Related:

Interesting question, hard to judge though!