I think there will be many of us like this. I haven't been able to schedule cooperative playtime since Asheron's Call back in the 90's (apart from the pool I play with the guys at church every other Friday night.) I think though, that there are a couple things that really work for scheduled play in SC.
First is they endorse multiple characters, so you can have one just for exploring in a group if you like. Second is, if the ship has beds you can log out and the ship and all its contents, including PCs survives. So you can play pop-on and fly a mission every night in 7 minutes if that's all you've got time for, and you can connect with a bunch of guys who want to play cooperatively, and that ship spawns every Friday night for 3 hours or some such, with up to 12 possible characters but you'll need 8 or some such. You can also combine these two. You can fly as a solo explorer and funnel that intel to your character who is flying on a weekender Carrack. In fact, everyone on a Carrck that's exploring, or a Polaris that is hunting Vanduul, can fly short dailies to gather intel for what they later do with their group. That would seem a hugely effective way to play to me. You can also multiply this flexibility by building fleets. You might choose to explore with a Carrack, Polaris and StarG, and if almost no one showed up, you might only spawn one of the three, but you'd still be accomplishing something for the group, like fueling up and scouting that next system.
My point is always that we all, always have pressure to play alone because of our schedules and because it requires no responsibility to play alone. Despite this we need to embrace the fact that we are each individually many times more effective as a part of a team than we are alone. My guess is there will be many disappointed Jav owners who though they have been told many times, just do not get this. Buying a big ship does not make you effective. It makes you a target. Working well with others is the single most important part of effective teamwork, be it work or play.