Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight

Main page   Discussion   Mitglieder   Assessment Popular pages   Open tasks   Recognized content     Awards   Portal Template:Wikipedia ad exists Template:Outline of knowledge coverage Template:Outline of knowledge coverage Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser Sandbox Organiser A place to help you organise your work Hi all I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful. Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated. Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened. Hope its helpful John Cummings (talk) 11:33, 6 February 2021 (UTC) @John Cummings: Goodness! Looks very cool. I imagine this will be better than my makeshift system. :) Thanks very much. --Neopeius (talk) 14:49, 6 February 2021 (UTC) Neopeius thanks very much, please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements in both the tool and the documentation, also if you look in the wikicode you'll see I've tried to add comments to make it easier to customise. I'm thinking there might be a couple of useful versions of this for different kinds of user. John Cummings (talk) 14:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC) @John Cummings: I use it all the time now. I only wish there were a way to delete User pages when I was done with them. --Neopeius (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2021 (UTC) @Neopeius: sure, you can add {{db-u1}} to the pages to get them deleted. John Cummings (talk) 19:36, 22 February 2021 (UTC) File:Inspiration4 Patch Art.png Template:Il has been nominated for deletion on Commons. It seems likely it will be deleted as it seems to require a fair-use rationale, which Commons does not accept. It needs to be re-uploaded to English Wikipedia, with NFURs added for the capsule article and the mission article. -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 02:44, 11 February 2021 (UTC) A textlogo [1] that does not meet the threshold of originality, and is thusly public domain, can be uploaded to Commons to replace the mission patch, for use on various other language Wikipedias, without any of us needing to know the language in question to write an appropriate NFUR for other languages. -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 02:44, 11 February 2021 (UTC) File:Inspiration4 Patch Art.png graphic image mission patch File:Inspiration4 Patch Art.png graphic image mission patch File:Inspiration4.png fabric mission patch File:Inspiration4.png has also been tagged for deletion. -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 03:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC) commons:file:Inspiration4.png has been deleted from COMMONS due to lacking a license. -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 14:22, 26 February 2021 (UTC) Textlogo versions have been uploaded to COMMONS, File:Inspiration4 icon.png and File:Inspiration4 Logo.png. File:Inspiration4 icon.png File:Inspiration4 Logo.png File:Inspiration4 icon.svg These can be used until such a time as the mission patch is uploaded to English Wikiedia under a fair-use rationale. -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 14:22, 26 February 2021 (UTC) I think these text logos are worse than not showing a logo. --mfb (talk) 14:39, 26 February 2021 (UTC) Spaceflight Banner Hello! Is it just me, or did we used to have a different banner for this project? Is there a copy of it anywhere? --03:29, 22 February 2021 (UTC) This one? User:Soumya-8974 added it in November 2020. --mfb (talk) 11:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC) I mean, is there a copy of the old one anywhere? :) --Neopeius (talk) 13:06, 22 February 2021 (UTC) @Neopeius: This is the banner before it was changed by Soumya-8974 – Special:PermanentLink/892086007. It can be restored from this, although it would be nice if links to the newsletter could be kept. Terasail[✉] 13:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Thanks, @Terasail: -- quite frankly, I've never liked this new one. The letters are so muddy against the planet. I won't revert it without consensus though... :) --Neopeius (talk) 13:24, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Scope of template Satellite and spacecraft instruments Hi! I have opened a discussion on Template talk:Satellite and spacecraft instruments about the scope of that template. It would be far too large to include all Earth observing instruments, and indeed most listed instruments observe other planets, except there are a few Earth observing instruments. Inclusion criteria are unclear. I think we need some guidelines here. --Gerrit CUTEDH 10:27, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Thanks! I have responded (in short, it seems a useless template). --Neopeius (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Timeline of spaceflight Hello, gang. I have been making a push to get all of the Timeline of Spaceflight articles up to snuff. After all, they are classified highest priority, and they serve as good hubs for the project. While folks have done a good job of keeping the modern timeline articles up to date, pre-2009 has pretty much lain fallow for a decade. So far, I have brought Spaceflight before 1951, 1951 in spaceflight, and 1952 in spaceflight to FLC status (I haven't nominated 1952 yet, but it's ready). 1953 in spaceflight is almost there, and I've made substantial progress on on 1954 in spaceflight. I've updated the working group page, too. I've gotten a few eyes on the first article and none on the second. If my spaceflight brethren could peek in and give reviews, that'd be great. I would love to be able to have High priority FLCs in the next Downlink :) Thanks! --Neopeius (talk) 13:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC) @Neopeius: Sure I can add a section about them to the next Downlink, linking to each one, if you want anything in particular said just ping me or add it yourself, I will create the February page now. Terasail[✉] 13:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC) @Terasail: Sorry for the confusion. I just meant I'm looking forward to our project having some FLs in the tally of articles :) --Neopeius (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Ah, thats fine. @Neopeius: If you ever want FLC / FA nominations listed on the newsletter just ping me and I can add a section for it, I don't really understand the process but its good to try to get more spaceflight pages featured. Terasail[✉] 14:27, 22 February 2021 (UTC) @Terasail: Would you like to learn? :) The more folks we have in the project who can do high level reviews, the more articles we can get to GA and FA status. :) --Neopeius (talk) 14:34, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Not sure, I will definitely be following FLC/FAC more closely in the future and attempt to understand it better, but I do best with minor article updates, and with Templates/Scripts which is why my mainspace edit % is so low. Terasail[✉] 14:56, 22 February 2021 (UTC) That's valuable too! --Neopeius (talk) 18:39, 22 February 2021 (UTC) "Commercial astronaut" Currently Hayley Arceneaux and Jared Isaacman have been categorized into Category:Commercial astronauts. To me this appears wrong, since they are on a single flight jaunt, and not some permanent space employee. I acknowledge that Isaacman is the person who funded the mission, and is listed as "commander". with Arceneaux listed as "medical officer". Should these two be reclassified into one of the other categories? Category:Space tourists or Category:Spaceflight participants, for example? -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 14:11, 22 February 2021 (UTC) They're going into space. Valentina Tereshkova was on a single flight jaunt, too. :) I say they're astronauts. --Neopeius (talk) 14:13, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Tereskhova was a uniformed member of the cosmonaut corps, and was trained in the operation of the Vostok, like other cosmonauts. Isaacman and Arceneaux are going on an autonomously operated SpaceX Dragon 2. They're more like Richard Garriot or Mark Shuttleworth who are classified as space tourists, even though they went into space. And not like Yi So-yeon, who was doing experiments in space, and had full cosmonaut training, and government support. Though a case could be made for them to be similar to Christa McAuliffe, being spaceflight participants. The question though is not if they are "astronauts", but if they are "commercial astronauts", which is where they are currently categorized. They are unlike the others currently so categorized, employees of space companies. Do you mean we should recategorize them into Category:Astronauts (or rather Category:American astronauts) instead of Commercial astronauts ? -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 14:19, 22 February 2021 (UTC) How about Konstantin Feoktistov? Isaacman and Arcenaux are the only crew of this flight. They are presumably being trained for it. If they were just passengers, I could see them being tourists. A case could be made for Arcenaux being a participant (essentially filling the role of payload specialist). --Neopeius (talk) 14:26, 22 February 2021 (UTC) Feoktistov seems to be a Soviet Deke Slayton, cosmonaut corps medically sidelined. We've already had a candidate space tourist medically sidelined, Enomoto. So, that leaves Isaacman, as a tourist, commercial astronaut, astronaut, spaceflight participant, or soemthing else. -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 01:36, 23 February 2021 (UTC) Wait and see what reliable sources call them. JHelzer💬 05:07, 23 February 2021 (UTC) It is currently in commercial astronaut, so the wait-and-see, would delete this category as being unsupported. -- 65.93.183.33 (talk) 00:46, 25 February 2021 (UTC) Sources for orbital elements in the info-boxes of crewed missions ? Hi everyone, I have a question regarding the apogee and perigee indicated in the info-boxes of crewed missions (missions linked in List_of_human_spaceflights). Some do not have sources, so I wonder where the info does come from. Some others have sources that link to obscure websites. Taking for example the crewed missions to the ISS, it reveals an obvious mismatch with the known altitude of the Station. (Click attached homemade graph) ISS missions apogee according to their articles How can the apogee be so low compared to the ISS ? Maybe I am missing something ? Most recent missions do not have these elements in their info-boxes. I think it would be a reasonable solution if you think, like me, that a lot of those could be inaccurate. First time posting in a wikipedia Project. I did not know where to post this, and stumbled upon this page which seems to be the perfect place to post something like this ? --LazyAssed Contender (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2021 (UTC) I've always been a bit confused myself about the need for the orbital elements in the Apollo article infoboxes, and feel they are of limited utility. The one-in-a-thousand (generously) editor who wants to know the selenocentric orbital parameters of, say, Apollo 14, probably knows that they changed several times and can find better, more specific sources.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:26, 23 February 2021 (UTC) Flights to the ISS never launch to the ISS orbit directly. Most of the time you would not end up in the same place as the ISS, and if you do then it's too risky to approach it using a big and relatively imprecise upper stage rocket engine. The typical rocket launch goes to an orbit below and behind the ISS, from there you "catch up" and then raise your orbit at the right time. I don't know what exactly is plotted in the graph, but it's probably the initial orbit for the lower Soyuz mission and a later orbit for the missions that match the ISS height. --mfb (talk) 08:52, 25 February 2021 (UTC) Yes, I thought it would mean something like this ; except these are articles about the missions, so we might want orbital parameters of the mission itself ? And the mission is the ISS. So I propose to remove orbital parameters of missions to MIR and to the ISS. It it an acceptable change ? It seems too big a decision for someone new here. --LazyAssed Contender (talk) 09:19, 1 March 2021 (UTC) Just referencing the ISS would work I guess. The ISS orbit when docking would be an option, too. The initial orbit would be more interesting in the scope of the rocket launch, not the crewed mission. --mfb (talk) 15:19, 1 March 2021 (UTC) Request for comment There is currently a debate on deleting an article about the Vacuum to Antimatter-Rocket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Vacuum_to_Antimatter-Rocket I have suggested keeping it because: I believe it's the only spacecraft proposal on using Schwinger pair production for uncrewed interstellar travel. JBIS is one of the most prestigious journals on interstellar tavel: https://www.jbis.org.uk/paper/2011.64.378 Centauri Dreams (https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2016/08/02/the-evolution-of-antimatter-propulsion/) is written by Paul Gilster, an expert on interstellar travel: https://www.planetary.org/profiles/paul-gilster Space.com and Interesting Engineering and reliable secondary sources as far as I'm concerned. Cheers. ExoEditor 03:36, 26 February 2021 (UTC) Technically, a request for comment like this should never contain your own opinions on the subject. It's supposed to be exclusively a matter of calling other editors' attention to a discussion about deleting an article. That guideline is supposed to prevent people from recruiting others favor their own position. The delete side makes good arguments. I gave it my best shot for saving some of the content. Good luck. JHelzer💬 15:32, 26 February 2021 (UTC) List of...launches page creation and formatting Starting with List of Electron launches (Which I split away from Electron (rocket) pages) there seems to be increase in articles which split the list of launches from their respective launch vehicle pages. What should (or should there be) a criteria when a split becomes necessary? When I split the List of Electron launches my intent in was because of Rocket Lab's claim that they will have frequent launches and that would cause the article to become too long. In hindsight this is probably WP:CRYSTAL. Recently I noticed that there are similar pages or drafts being created: Current drafts Draft:List of Delta 4 Medium launches (currently part of Delta IV, List of Thor and Delta launches (2000–2009), and List of Thor and Delta launches (2010–2019)) Draft:List of Delta 4 Heavy launches (currently part of Delta IV Heavy) Draft:List of Antares launches (currently part of Antares (rocket)) Draft:List of Atlas LV3A launches (not currently anywhere in the encyclopedia) Draft:List of Minotaur launches (currently part of Minotaur (rocket family)) New articles List of Vega launches (originally in Vega (rocket) List of Delta 4-M launches (not anywhere else in the encyclopedia) Previous created articles This section is an excerpt from Lists of rocket launches § Lists of rocket launches by rocket.[edit] List of Antares launches List of Ariane launches List of Atlas launches List of Black Brant launches List of Delta IV Heavy launches List of Delta IV Medium launches List of Electron rocket launches List of failed Thor and Delta launches List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches List of H-I and H-II launches List of Launch Services Program launches List of Long March launches List of Minotaur launches List of Proton launches List of PSLV launches List of R-7 launches List of Starship launches List of Thor and Delta launches List of Titan launches List of V-2 test launches List of Vega Launches List of Zenit launches The new pages do add new info in some cases (I like some of the new graphs in particular like "by orbit" - maybe other list of pages can add them too). But also some of the lists have the formatting changed from the original which I found confusing. I don't think infoboxes are needed as readers can go to the main page about the rocket to learn more about it. And the heading "About the <rocket name>" doesn't seem like an encyclopedic tone, but other then that the pages seem fine. So, at what point should the list of launches be split out (or how many launches of a particular launch vehicle warrant a dedicated list of launches article)? What info should we have on those pages? OkayKenji (talk • contribs) 02:36, 1 March 2021 (UTC) I would say in most cases about 10 launches (including planned) should merit its own article. If a rocket is very notable, however, like Starship (List of Starship flights), it could work with less. N828335 (talk) 03:44, 1 March 2021 (UTC) I added the list of V-2 launches to Spaceflight before 1951. Thanks very much. :) --Neopeius (talk) 04:07, 1 March 2021 (UTC) All of those articles, except for List of Delta 4-M launches, List of Atlas LV3A launches, and soon to be submitted List of Atlas LV3B launches. List of Delta 4-M launches has no other article to move the information too. List of Atlas LV3A launches is notable because it had the first launch ever(according to Space Launch Schedule and Space Launch Now) and also has no other place to move the information too. List of Atlas LV3B launches is notable because Atlas LV3B was the 3rd rocket ever to launch humans to space. Can somebody please review all of the draft articles? Thanks in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.2.238.109 (talk) 19:52, 2 March 2021 (UTC) @OkayKenji: @N828335: @OkayKenji: @N828335: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.2.238.109 (talk) Hey, I will get to this soon, probably the weekend. OkayKenji (talk • contribs) 14:35, 4 March 2021 (UTC) Okay. Just some of them have been waiting for over 5 weeks to be reviewed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.2.238.109 (talk) 18:06, 4 March 2021 (UTC) Is Space.com reliable? A discussion is being held here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RfC:_Space.com and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Space.com_reliable? Template:Orbital launches in [year] 2020 is missing most flights, 2021 is starting with the same problem. But do we need these templates? Where is the use case of "I'm looking at this satellite, I want to go to satellites that were launched the same calendar year"? If people think it's useful then the templates should probably be expanded to cover all launches. --mfb (talk) 09:54, 11 March 2021 (UTC) Requested move 11 March 2021 Cygnus CRS Orb-1 → Cygnus Orb-1 Cygnus CRS Orb-2 → Cygnus Orb-2 Cygnus CRS Orb-3 → Cygnus Orb-3 Cygnus CRS OA-4 → Cygnus OA-4 Cygnus CRS OA-5 → Cygnus OA-5 Cygnus CRS OA-6 → Cygnus OA-6 Cygnus CRS OA-7 → Cygnus OA-7 Cygnus CRS OA-8E → Cygnus OA-8E Cygnus CRS OA-9E → Cygnus OA-9E – I thought I'd open the discussion here, as it'd attract as many opinions as possible compared to if I placed it on the talk page of any of these articles. Anyways, it just seemed weird to me that we have different naming schemes going for the Northrop Grumman Cygnus missions and the Orbital Sciences / Orbital ATK Cygnus missions. The article titles for the Northrop Grumman Cygnus missions have a good naming scheme in which the mission name – "NG-10", "NG-11", "NG-12", ect. – is prefixed by the name of the spacecraft class being flown – "Cygnus" – in order to disambiguate the name from being a seemingly random assortment of two letters and two numbers (WP:DAB). We would get the same idea if we applied the same naming scheme to the Orbital Sciences / Orbital ATK Cygnus missions; we really don't need to further disambiguate with "CRS" in order to communicate that these are Cygnus spaceflight missions instead of something else called "Orb" or "OA" (WP:PRECISION), in my opinion. — Molly Brown (talk) 13:51, 11 March 2021 (UTC) The Unsinkable Molly Brown, I'm not opposed to the move, but I want to point out that it might be better just to create redirects to the pages. βӪᑸᙥӴ • Talk • Contribs 23:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC) @Bop34: I feel that it would be a bandaid solution if the article titles themselves are not being changed to be more consistent with other articles on Cygnus missions and better comply with standards for precision and disambiguation in article titles. — Molly Brown (talk) 03:04, 13 March 2021 (UTC) The Unsinkable Molly Brown, OK I guess that makes sense. βӪᑸᙥӴ • Talk • Contribs 15:46, 13 March 2021 (UTC) Kommentar: Wow, what a mess. Before I oppose let me make a comment and have my mind changed. I think the CRS is important in the title. In the NASA Mission Overview files (see 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12) the official name of the first 9 CRS missions are Orbital ATK CRS-1 to Orbital ATK CRS-9. Then they switched to Northrop Grumman CRS-10 to Northrop Grumman CRS-17. CRS-X is the consistent naming scheme of all the Cygnus missions from 1 all the way through to 17. I do not find "Cygnus" in the mission title anywhere but here on Wikipedia. I would therefor propose title names of OA CRS-1 to OA CRS-9 and then NG CRS-10 to NG CRS-17. This makes a nice standard beside the SpaceX CRS-1 series of flight articles. JHelzer💬 13:53, 13 March 2021 (UTC) OA CRS-1 and NG CRS-10 have the random letter combination issue again. Orbital ATK CRS-1 and Northrop Grumman CRS-10 would avoid this issue. Looking at the category, most flights are "spacecraft_type flight-number". The exceptions are SpaceX (company instead of vehicle) and the ATVs (individual names). --mfb (talk) 14:49, 13 March 2021 (UTC) @JHelzer and Mfb: Do remember that the first three missions were operated by Orbital Sciences, and not Orbital ATK, and therefore it would be "Orbital Sciences CRS-3" and not "Orbital ATK CRS-3". The ISS National Lab refers to the first mission as simply "Orbital-1", and so does NASA themselves. This is what the "Orb" in the first three mission names refers to. — Molly Brown (talk) 04:13, 14 March 2021 (UTC) ​ Thanks Molly, for clarifying that. It didn't register for me until your reminder. I think we should also consider the titles of the upcoming Dream Chaser CRS missions. Will they be Dream Chaser-1 oder Sierra Nevada CRS-1? I still think that CRS in the title is important to tie all the Commercial Resupply Service missions together and make them instantly recognizable. JHelzer💬 05:04, 14 March 2021 (UTC)