This capstone project, the culmination of the IBM Data Science Professional Certificate specialization, aims to predict the success of SpaceX first stage landings based on various factors. SpaceX, renowned for its innovative approach to space travel, offers significantly cheaper launch costs by reusing the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket. By understanding the factors influencing landing success, we can estimate the cost of a launch more accurately.
To achieve this, we'll employ a comprehensive methodology. First, we'll gather relevant data using the SpaceX REST API and web scraping techniques from Wikipedia. Next, we'll clean and prepare the data for analysis, handling missing values and encoding categorical variables. Then, we'll delve into exploratory data analysis, visualizing trends and relationships between variables using SQL and visualization tools. To enhance our understanding, we'll also create interactive dashboards using Folium and Plotly Dash.
Finally, we'll apply predictive modeling techniques to build, tune, and evaluate various classification models. This will help us determine the most effective algorithm for predicting first stage landing success based on factors like payload mass, launch site, number of flights, and orbits. By analyzing these results, we'll gain insights into how these variables impact landing success and whether the rate of successful landings has improved over time.
- Data Collection:
- Use SpaceX REST API.
- Web scrape from Wikipedia.
- Data Wrangling:
- Filter data.
- Handle missing values.
- One-hot encode categorical variables.
- Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA):
- Visualize trends and relationships using SQL and visualization tools.
- Create interactive dashboards using Folium and Plotly Dash.
- Predictive Modeling:
- Build, tune, and evaluate classification models.
- Determine the most effective algorithm for predicting first stage landing success.
- Analyze the impact of factors like payload mass, launch site, number of flights, and orbits on landing success.
- Assess whether the rate of successful landings has improved over time.