Talk:List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches/Archive 3

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Proposal: return section title to "Future launches"

For many months prior to late July, the section title for the section showing the prospective launches was "Future launches" (at least since, April 2015 for example, which is near the bottom of the history list of the last 1000 edits to this article.) After at least a year and a half with that title, it was switched to Future missions sometime in the past month.

Proposal: Change this section title back to Future launches, from the title Future missions which it was given in the past month.

Rationale: SpaceX is a launch service provider and provides launch services. SpaceX has repeatedly said that, as a company, they are in the space transport business. Falcon 9 is a launch vehicle. SpaceX provides launches to their customers. The payload is what goes on a mission. Most SpaceX launches are flying payloads for paying customers, and therefore SpaceX' job ends following the initial launch and satellite release on the contracted orbital trajectory. Obviously, SpaceX has a smaller subset of their launches that are flying a SpaceX payload (Dragon), and for those it is arguable that SpaceX flies the entire "mission" of the payload. However, this article is about all launches of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, not merely the SpaceX Dragon missions to the ISS.

Comment on History of other launch vehicles. The legacy history of many various military or national government-funded launch vehicles has often appropriated the name of the payload mission as a handy descriptor for the launch as well. But those launches were either all done with expendable vehicles, where the launcher is merely a throwaway part of the cost of the payload's mission, or were such that both the launch and the "mission" were operated by the same agency (eg., NASA, or ESA) so it may make sense to think of the launch and the mission as one.

• SUPPORT, as nom. SpaceX launches clearly are about the launch, and not the mission. "Future launches" for the section title is consistent with both the title of the article itself and with SpaceX part of the total spaceflight mission that may last months or years. Moreover, SpaceX does things on most of its launches—first stage return attempts, whether "experimental" or soon, a fully operational aspect—that are not related to the so-called "mission". N2e (talk) 11:29, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support, yep, that makes sense. — Huntster (t @ c) 15:47, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support. As long as the scope is Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, it should be launches. Totally agree. – Baldusi (talk) 18:09, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support If there were a lot of red dragon missions then there might be a case but for now should be launches. crandles (talk) 23:36, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: I was bold and went ahead and changed it back to launches, but JFG felt strongly enough to revert me with the comment "Missions are more than launches, and that's what SpaceX calls them". --Pmsyyz (talk) 11:54, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
• Neutral – @Pmsyyz: Actually I don't feel that strongly… I'd be fine with "Future launches" too if that's what consensus looks like. What tends to irk me is spurious repetition of words in the prose, such as "On 30 April 2048 SpaceX successfully launched the SpaceX CRS-92 mission at the top of the 16:45–17:45 launch window, launching the previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 Mega Thrust first-stage core serial #44 which had earlier successfully landed and relaunched 4 times, all successful". If we can avoid that kind of trend, readers will surely appreciate it. — JFG ^talk 13:31, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - I've changed my mind. This article doesn't just talk about the launches, but the booster landings also. SpaceX calls them missions: http://www.spacex.com/missions --Pmsyyz (talk) 14:11, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
• Support - the launch is the main feature of the rocket family, and we list all launches. The SpaceX "mission" definition is broader, and probably includes things like the Dragon docking to the ISS, which is not a "list of Falcon 9/Heavy launches" any more. We don't follow the rocket payload here. --mfb (talk) 11:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
• Comment – since the article section was titled "Future launches" for over a year and a half, and only changed to "Future missions" in the past month or so, then per the standard policy of WP:BRD—where an editor makes a Bold edit, another editor might then challenge it and Revert the change, and then a Discussion should ensue on the Talk page—the current state of the article text ought to be "Future launches", even during the time the discussion is going on. Since an editor already switched it back to "Future missions" twice, once before and once after this discussion got started, I will forbear and not change it myself as I was the one who ultimately started the Discussion part of the process with this proposal. However, any other editor should feel free to put it back to the original state now, per WP:BRD, even if this discussion is not complete and might go on for a month, as they sometimes do. Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:38, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I've modified the section heading back to Future launches, per most views above, and per WP:BRD should anyone like to continue the discussion for a longer period of time. N2e (talk) 14:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Article on the launch pad fire/deflagration/explosion event?

I haven't been able to find an article about the launch pad fire/deflagration/explosion event, the cleanup/analysis of the pad, the investigation into the root cause, rescheduling of other launches (as is discussed in the section above), effect on other F9 launches from distant pads (California Iridium launches), etc.

There is a very little bit about the event in the Amos-6#Destruction section; but quite correctly, an article about a satellite that was destroyed before launch, the economic knockon effects on the sat company owner and the customers that had contracted for the services, etc. is the wrong place for extensive encyclopedic coverage of the actual LV loss, pad damage, pad repair, etc.

So is there such an article anywhere? Definitely is notable, with massive news coverage which will continue for many months, and would meet notability criteria for a separate article. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:49, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Here's are examples of a couple of good sources on the big picture behind this loss-of-vehicle and damage-to-pad event:

• http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/shock-waves-and-ripple-effects/. And most all of it would truly not be appropriate scope for the Amos-6 article. N2e (talk) 15:11, 14 September 2016 (UTC)
• http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-competitors-20160914-snap-story.html. N2e (talk) 23:21, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

We can surely expand coverage as new information becomes available. For now there is not much to say besides speculation. The article you quote is merely sensationalist scaremongering; rockets blow up or fail to reach orbit a couple times a year and there are no major ripple effects on the industry, it's all baked in. See global stats in Timeline of spaceflight. It was looking strangely lucky that 2016 saw no launch failures for 8 months with 55 flights until the Gaofen-10 / Amos-6 double whammy. Actually, the revival of the US commercial launch industry improves the global safety of doing business for satellite operators, because they can shop around for price and time-to-delivery and switch their payloads to another carrier when something goes wrong.

About article scope, I believe that the Amos-6 page is the right place to add followup information, per usual practice in spaceflight articles. See SpaceX CRS-7, Cygnus CRS Orb-3, Intelsat 27, GSAT-1, Intelsat III F-1, etc. — JFG ^talk 17:39, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

So, I infer from your statement that the answer is "no, no such article currently exists."

This major tech failure in the space industry, and losses of several hundred millions dollars (some insured, some not) and effect on delay or halt of a major Merger and acquisition and loss of SpaceX's only current east-coast pad that can take SpaceX supplies to the ISS is very clearly notable, and worth much more than a footnote of a paragraph on a (now) dead satellite article. It has currently halted a launch provider that in recent years has had something like 40%-50% of the US launch market, and is sizable in the global industry. More than that, there are literally 50+ reliable source news articles and other coverage of the event/failure. Clearly meets WP:GNG.

I don't have the time to create such an article at present, but if created by any editor, with at least 3 or 4 good sources, the article would absolutely pass any review, even as a stub or start class article, and would be rather steadily improved over the coming weeks and months as many more sources will appear on the topic. As an administrator once told me, "On Wikipedia, an article on a balsa-wood model airplane can exist, as long as it meets the standard WP:V and WP:RS/WP:CS criteria. So while I'm not creating such an article now, I don't want other editors to think that there is any particular reason such an article could not exist, based on opinion in this Talk page section. N2e (talk) 23:21, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I totally agree that the event is eminently notable, however there is no need for a new article. Everything you mention here can be expressed in couple of paragraphs in the Amos-6 article. KISS — JFG ^talk 11:39, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

See also the most famous "pad fire" incident in history: Soyuz 7K-ST No. 16L in 1983. Crew was saved within a few seconds of disaster by the launch escape system, pad was utterly destroyed, costing an estimated 300 million USD to rebuild, it had a ripple effect on the Soviet space program and international human spaceflight cooperations, still one article is enough to cover it. — JFG ^talk 11:46, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

So it is clear that the two of us discussing here are not in agreement. I am saying that there is no separate article at present; any editor could create such an article; and if created and decently supported by sources, it would withstand any reasonable WP:AfD; on other words, such an article may be created. You are saying the there is no need for such an article, and (seem to imply) that no editor should create such an article. So probably best just to agree to disagree on this point, and see what editors (present company or others) may choose to do on this later on, as time passes. N2e (talk) 21:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I was just voicing my opinion on the matter. No prejudice about what other editors should or shouldn't do! — JFG ^talk 18:13, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I would tend to agree that a separate article isn't necessarily, at least not at this time. Launch pad issues happen. I feel that right now, such an article would smack of WP:Recentism; if it does turn out to have much wider implications then the issue could certainly be revisited, but considering SpaceX's first Falcon loss didn't create all that many ripples (for that matter, the three rocket losses in a row didn't), I return to not seeing the need. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:36, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Renaming to "List of Falcon Launches"

To shorten the name and make its purpose more clearly resemble the article's intent, I believe it would be good to rename this article "List of Falcon Launches" or "List of Falcon Rocket Launches". Since it already includes two different rockets, it seems logical to encompass the whole family. That would also involve adding the few Falcon 1 launches, but they are few in number and wouldn't be harmful to the intent of the article. Keavon (talk) 07:14, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

• I agree with this. The other launch family list articles contain a variety of variations across decades. I see no reason to not include Falcon 1 launches here. — Huntster (t @ c) 17:16, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

• OPPOSE I'm going to oppose this one. Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 are such different launch vehicles, that it makes no sense to combine them just because the marketing/public name of the LV is "Falcon". If a consensus really feels that there should be only one list, it would then make more sense to name it "List of SpaceX launches". As you can see, I think that is not the best option either. (It is a separate question as to how Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 launches became combined, and whether that is a good idea. But I'll keep this discussion to just the topic that the proposer suggested.) Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:45, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
• Neutral There are good arguments on both sides but I find the current grouping more logical. Falcon 1 was a totally unrelated vehicle, whereas Falcon Heavy can be considered a launch configuration of Falcon 9, so I believe we have the correct level of granularity with regards to rocket variants. However, I also agree that this title is a bit long, and we do have (crude) lists of Ariane and R-7 / Soyuz launches encompassing all variants across decades — which may not be the best way to list them; some foreign wikis group launches by rocket type even if they share a brand name, for example German Ariane 4 and Ariane 5 launches, Russian Soyuz-2 launches. If we do rename this to "List of Falcon launches" as suggested by the OP, I would advise listing Falcon 1 launches in a separate table and getting rid of List of Falcon 1 launches which I already proposed for merger with Falcon 1. The placement of Heavy launches can be debated separately. — JFG ^talk 08:38, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment This seems to be a complex topic, and I'm not sure where it should be discussed. Let's list some examples of history and designs of different launch vehicle families.
    • Ariane. Ariane 4 and 5 are very different launch vehicles and the launch list can be splitted.
    • R-7. All R-7 rockets share very similiar 1st/2nd stage design, except for Soyuz-2-1v.
    • Long March. LM-2,3,4 are based on DF-5 ICBM. New generation LM rockets (5,6,7) are new design.
    • Thor and Delta. Thor, numerical Delta, Delta II and III share similiar first stage structure. Delta IV is largely a new design and its launch statistics can be splitted.
    • Falcon. Falcon 1 and 9/heavy share some design principles i.e. 1st stage engine, balloon tank, fairing and F9 is effectively a scale-up version of F1. Both options discussed above are acceptable.
  • My suggestion is to group different launch vehicles by their designs and technical characteristics. The name itself does not mean anything. PSR B1937+21 (talk) 08:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I second PSR B1937+21's suggestion to group LVs by their technical characteristics, so Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy belong logically together and Falcon 1 remains separate. The Long March grouping into real technical families is long overdue. Soyuz have been arbitrarily split between the legacy Soyuz lines ending with the soon-retiring Soyuz-U and Soyuz-FG, and the Soyuz-2 lines which do have a lot in common but imho have enough differences to be genuinely called a new generation (and yes, 2-1-v should be separate). — JFG ^talk 17:08, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

• OPPOSE The rocket is not named "Falcon" it is named either "Falcon 9" or "Falcon Heavy". I propose actually splitting the article into two once we actually have Falcon Heavy launches. If we want a single combined page then we should group them under the company name. Ergzay (talk) 04:54, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

• Neutral - As far as I know Falcon 1 was never intended to do many flights, so it could be seen as precursor to Falcon 9/Heavy. On the other hand, the payloads for all three rockets are different. Falcon 1 launched a small satellite, Falcon 9 launches medium-sized payloads, and Heavy will focus on the very heavy lifting. I'm fine with all three options - merge with Falcon 1, keep the current article, or split 9/Heavy in two lists. --mfb (talk) 11:13, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose This article seems likely to get long over next few years even if we split off Heavy launches. Falcon 1 is different time period (as well as different type/size of rocket) easily done as separate article. I am thinking sortable table for falcon 9 and falcon heavy so can put launches in time order or sort by type might be useful functionality if Heavy is kept on this page. crandles (talk) 15:28, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

To make it sortable by type, we would have to merge the years again. I think the split by year is useful. --mfb (talk) 19:24, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Sortability by various criteria would be very important for such a long list. I do support removing the year headings. — Szabi (talk) 13:32, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• Neutral I don't really care if you keep the current article, separate the two/three rockets into their own articles, or merge all of them. In my perspective, the Falcon 1 being added to the list article will not cause much to happen. However, I can see both sides, and I'll let them be. If you merge all 3 rockets into the same list page, I think you should also have in the table of contents a link to the launch list of each of the rockets, for easier navigation, as well as them being in order. If you decide to split them into separate articles, you should also have one article which shows all of the launches from all of the rockets in chronological order. That is my opinion on the matter. User:Awesomegaming (User talk:Awesomegamingtalk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:05, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

• Support or Alternative The points raised by original proposer are valid. Alternatively, as even the Falcon 9 launch list is bound to become very long, I suggest splitting List of F9 and FH launches into two. — Szabi (talk) 13:32, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

New graph looks overkill

Szabi recently added a synthesis graph listing all SpaceX launches on a timeline. Although I see that a lot of effort has been put in building this graph, I fail to see how it communicates better information to readers. To me, it is a very puzzling way to assemble statistics. I removed it from the SpaceX article where it is clearly overkill, but refrained from slashing it here too. Opinions from fellow editors are most welcome. Perhaps the graph can be improved? In its current form, I don't think it brings significant clarity to the article. — JFG ^talk 18:37, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello, JFG and thanks for your feedback.

Let me explain my motivation. Browsing the article and looking at the table, I had a very hard time getting a good idea of (a) the different types of Falcon 9s used, (b) the cadence of the launches and (c) evaluating the success/failure info. That was the reason I created this chart, and included it for the benefit of others. The chart is actually in line (wrt. to representation) with some historic graphs used by the US administration, see to the right. I think, the graph serves well in addressing the aforementioned points.

Now I can see why you reverted the graph from the SpaceX article, and I do not contest that. However, I genuinely feel the graph here is apt in conveying a lot of information at a glance, being an enrichment to Wikipedia, and would argue it to stay, as in my opinion it emphatically "brings significant clarity to the article". — Szabi (talk) 13:23, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

We have the statistics section for all those things. Maybe it can be moved there and made smaller? Oh, and as this article is about F9/FH only, it should not include Falcon 1 and Grasshopper. That also makes it easier to reduce the width. --mfb (talk) 19:45, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

@Szabi: Thanks for sharing where your inspiration came from; nice historical NASA graph there! I agree with Mfb that the existing charts in our Statistics section cover the data you were curious about and I feel that simple bar charts are clearer to readers. Besides, they are easy to maintain by any editor when each new flight happens, whereas your version requires specialist work. I do share your desire of extracting a summary from the already long launch table, which we all hope will resume growing soon. To this effect, I would suggest moving the Statistics section to the top of the Launch History section, in lieu of your graph. so readers would see an overview of the mission types, frequency and success rate before reading the detailed list of launches. I have tried this approach now on a draft page so we can compare the feel of it. — JFG ^talk 09:24, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

@Appable, C-randles, Dbsseven, Editorinside4, Lklundin, Mfb, Михаило Јовановић, Msaynevirta, N2e, Offtomars, Pmsyyz, and PSR B1937+21: and any other frequent editors: could you kindly say if you prefer keeping Szabi's NASA-inspired graph or moving the Statistics section up as suggested in my Draft:List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches? — JFG ^talk 15:24, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I prefer the draft version. Statistics on top, launch list below (with increasing launch numbers, the statistics get more relevant), no graph. --mfb (talk) 15:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

No graph (sorry) in favor of the draft version, but if that information could be combined in a more intuitive synthesis graph by Szabi or any other user then I think it'd be worth re-discussing. Appable (talk) 20:00, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I vote draft version. Somehow it looks cleaner to me for now. Maybe in a few years it will get more crowded as launches build up and then we can change it...--Михаило Јовановић (talk) 06:59, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, draft version as well. I actually *really* like the graphic, but I just don't think it works well in the article given its size. Maybe there's some other way to make use of it? — Huntster (t @ c) 07:11, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

I prefer the statistics being moved up. While I appreciate Szabi's work on File:SpaceX launches timeline.png I feel too much weight is given to the different "versions" of Falcon 9 as SpaceX President/COO Shotwell has said "We called it the version 1.1, to not scare anybody, but really it's like the version one thousand and one." --Pmsyyz (talk) 08:01, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for your feedback; I just moved the stats up per consensus. — JFG ^talk 17:00, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Situation after loss of Amos-6

It doesn't look like there will be any more Falcon-9 flights during the rest of 2016. In today's (13 September 2016) spaceflightnow.com launch schedule these flights are marked 'TBD' as they are very much up in the air until the causes behind the Amos-6 mishap have been determined and any corrective measures taken. The future mission section for 2016 should, therefore, have 'TBD' in the first column for all the missions. Abul Bakhtiar (talk) 16:48, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

SpaceX hopes to fly again in November, see the recent changes. Assuming they continue to produce rockets, they can probably launch 1-2 rockets in November and 2 in December. Maybe 3 in December if LC39A gets finished and if they push for it. --mfb (talk) 18:57, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Shotwell said aiming for November launch earlier this week. N2e (talk) 14:49, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Launch Photography says first Florida flight not earlier than December. tweet says East Coast then to Vandenberg. (These are refs for dates of first two flights.) Is the tweet now outdated or should we still expect first Vandenberg flight will be after first Florida flight and therefore date for Iridium flight be NET December and order changed? crandles (talk) 15:17, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

@C-randles: I believe the tweet is outdated: De Selding was quoting an estimate from Shotwell on September 15, where she planned RTF for both sites in November. Later on the Cooper source moved the next Florida launch to December so I pushed it behind Iridium in the table. Unless we find a source that announces a further delay in the Iridium flight, I see no reason that it shouldn't happen first. The satellites have been ready for months and the Vandenberg launch pad is unchanged (apparently didn't suffer from the forest fire). At the Cape, we are talking about the first launch of a reused booster and the first use of the LC-39A refurbished pad, both potential sources of uncertainties. — JFG ^talk 21:05, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

After flight 19 they said they would be flying again in a couple of months but it was very nearly 6 months. They have said this failure is more complex so I doubt December let alone November but this would be original research. Re "I see no reason that it shouldn't happen first" maybe but as valid might be sorting all issues with rtf is the more likely problem causing delay from November to December but without a ref either is similarly looking like OR. I won't re-revert but think we should stick to references rather than OR. crandles (talk) 09:59, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

The difference is that this failure doesn't have anything to do with the rocket itself, but is rather a failure caused by procedural issues during fueling (flow rate too high/low, temperature too high/low, that sort of thing). No physical changes to the rocket are likely to happen before the next launch, and even ground equipment may not be modified, beyond the inclusion of some additional sensors to help track down the cause of future failures (and future failures WILL happen). What will certainly happen is a software tweak.

This is less analogous to the loss of CRS-7 than it is to the loss of F1-flight 3, when the only change that occurred between flight three (total loss) and four (success) was literally a single line of code. — Gopher65_talk 20:48, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Interesting, but ... why did tweet about rtf say CC then to VAFB unless this means they had decided to do investigation/testing etc in Florida? If so, and particularly if there is a ground equipment change, it seems sensible to test it all out there before rolling out changes to other launch pads. Why assume a change in order? Maybe I am reading too much into that tweet, but if there isn't some reasoning like that then it seems odd that unrelated info was tacked onto tweet. If we are leaving order as is, how far into November do we have to get without a date before we put Iridium back to December? Ref would obviously be nice, but I think we shouldn't spout nonsense when there is no chance of a launch in November. How late can a November launch date at V be booked? crandles (talk) 22:03, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, really all scheduled 2016 flights should be "TBD" or "on hold". I wouldn't object to removing the specific dates on 2016 flights until we have more info. As to the order, that's up in the air now too. *Something* will probably launch in December, but it won't be SES-10 or CRS-10, which won't launch until January now, IIRC the various tweets from those organizations. That leaves Iridium and FormoSat-5 as the likely contenders. If I were SpaceX I'd push for Iridium, because if something goes wrong the Vandenberg pad is less valuable than LC-39A. But that's all speculation. Truthfully we don't know, and neither do they. — Gopher65_talk 00:14, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh wait, they're *both* vandy launches, haha. — Gopher65_talk 00:18, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Folks, I just updated the schedule per latest sources: SES-10 and CRS-10 bumped to January, CRS-11 to March, SES-11 some time after SES-10, Iridium unsure to be first RTF but no info on date, so leaving at tentative November until we hear more. — JFG ^talk 07:04, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Booster retrieval attempt for upcoming launch ?

Is there any source on whether the upcoming launch will include an attempt to retrieve the booster, e.g. on a drone ship? Thanks. Lklundin (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Payload and orbit strongly suggest drone ship, but I don't find a reliable source. --mfb (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it's pretty obviously a drone ship landing due to mass. The previous launch where SpaceX talked about landing on land at VAFB was a 553 kg satellite (Jason-3). Iridium is 9,600 kg. But yeah, no source to quote.Greg (talk) 02:13, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Booster retrieval is pretty much standard procedure by now. Nothing remarkable to investigate. — JFG ^talk 20:49, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. I guess in 10 days the question will be settled. Thanks. Lklundin (talk) 20:54, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Iridium CEO believes it is a drone ship landing. --mfb (talk) 22:29, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done Drone ship. --mfb (talk) 19:48, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Planned number of 2017 launches

Robin Seemangal wrote on Twitter "SpaceX: We'll launch every two weeks in 2017." but deleted that later (deletion discussion). So we have some estimate, but no source for it. Their own estimates were always very optimistic, but a plan would be better than no information. --mfb (talk) 16:26, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

We do need to wait for some source… Probably Shotwell would be asked the question in an upcoming presser… — JFG ^talk 22:52, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

 Done – Found a source and added the attributed information to the article. — JFG ^talk 23:08, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Launch template

This article had two ugly templates on top saying "Launching now" and "Launching in 12 days, things may change". Honestly, given the frequencies of future launches, there will always be two templates on top. And just saing the obvious "details may change". By this logic, every article about something in the present must have such a template on top. I'd argue that such a note adds nothing helpful to the article and is quite distracting. I wiped it for now. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 20:11, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. A wider discussion about usage of those templates should be held at WP:WikiProject Spaceflight. — JFG ^talk 22:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I nominated it for deletion. Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 January 15. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:20, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Moving the F9-XXX numbers

The way the two launch tables are currently set up, the F9-XXX number is in the "rocket" column, which is slightly misleading because that identifier is just an internal SpaceX flight number. I think it would be more appropriate to have it in the flight column since it is completely independent of the specific rocket that launched the mission. Thoughts? Matte427 (talk) 23:32, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Do we have any sources backing up the numbering scheme you call "internal"? — JFG ^talk 22:48, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

The F9-XX scheme isn't strictly internal, but it is SpaceX's way of numbering the flights. They are only assigned to one mission, and won't stay with a booster when it reflies. An employee explains the system in this comment thread. Matte427 (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Mixing orbital and sub-orbital is confusing and incomplete

The SpaceX DM2 mission has the comment:

Unless Blue Origin's crewed New Shepard (currently planned for Q2 2017) or Boeing's CST-100 Starliner fly first (currently planned for August 2018), they will be the first people to ride an American spacecraft since the last Shuttle flight in 2011.

This mixes orbital and sub-orbital flights, and ignores post-2011 sub-orbital flights such as SpaceShipOne's ill-fated test flights, and I think also two different people who went above 100k feet in balloons. Since the focus of this overall article is orbital flight, can we just remove this sentence? Greg (talk) 18:21, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The Kármán line at an altitude of 100km (330,000ft) is the accepted international standard for the atmosphere/space boundary. Virgin Galactic have not had any sub-orbital flights post-2011. Their last was SpaceShipOne's 2004 flight. None of SpaceshipTwo's test flights have been classified as sub-orbital. The two balloons you cite as over 100k ft, even though advertised as "edge of space" flights were actually under half way to the Kármán line. MarsToutatis ^talk 19:13, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

We could add "to space", as technically SpaceShipTwo can be called "spacecraft" (although it didn't cross the Kármán line yet), and people were riding in it. --mfb (talk) 23:00, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

VSS Enterprise had 4 flights (last ill fated) between April 2013 and Sept 2014, these might well be suborbital flights in the period since 2011 but they didn't reach 100km altitude. So while sentence is true (baring silly possibilities like SpaceX dragon 2 having someone inside while it was moved on the ground). However, Q2 2017 is quite a bit before May 2018, so would it be better to drop blue origin part and add 'orbit in' in place of 'ride' ? crandles (talk) 23:19, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

That is certainly a cleaner solution. --mfb (talk) 23:38, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

That's what I'm suggesting, yes, I don't think that these non-orbital details are interesting in this context. Greg (talk) 22:34, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

If there is no further discussion, it looks like it should be changed. Just slightly worried does the ISS have an American part; does that make the revised version wrong? Is it 'launched to orbit' that we are interested in?crandles (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

"Launched to orbit" is very precise. --mfb (talk) 03:22, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Flight 29 serial number

We have an interesting conundrum. SpaceX is now visually numbering their first stage cores, as seen with File:Iridium-1 Launch (32312416415).jpg for Flight 29. Unfortunately, we have our serial number for that flight as "F9-030". Now, does anyone know if the "29" stenciled on that rocket indicates its serial number or its flight number? Seems strange to stencil in a flight number, which is potentially a moving target. — Huntster (t @ c) 20:10, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

That F9-30 isn't a serial number, it's a flight number. SpaceX numbers its flights in that form (F9-XX) and they are mainly sequential, but occasionally launch out of order. Those F9-XX numbers are assigned to a mission and are one-time-use only, they really have nothing to do with the specific first stages. There are three ways to number and track flights:

• Falcon 9 Flight X (purely sequential)
• F9-XX (SpaceX flight numbers, mainly sequential)
• B1XXX-X (first stage serial numbers)

The B1XXX-X format is the first stage serial number. The B1XXX part will never change during the life of the booster, and the -X on the end denotes the number of times it has flown. For example, CRS-8 used B1021-1 and SES-10 will use B1021-2. This serial number is what was painted on the bottom of the Iridium-1 rocket, it used first stage 1029-1. Matte427 (talk) 21:49, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Makes me prefer the simplicity of Atlas and Delta serial numbers. — Huntster (t @ c) 00:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, if it's not a serial number, then we should just remove this from the table. Thanks for the sourcing btw. — JFG ^talk 16:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I still see it listed with the column heading of "Serial", Since it's not the real serial number, it should be removed or updated to the correct first stage Serial number. - Jesse Schulman (talk) 00:11, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

 Removed — JFG ^talk 19:46, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Feb 2017 Delays

New Article states that February 2017 missions are delayed - http://www.universityherald.com/articles/63781/20170204/federal-investigation-warns-spacex-iss-transit-after-falcon-9-rocket-defects-are-discovered-nasa-alarmed.htm - Jesse Schulman (talk) 20:55, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

While the article does state that SpaceX is not launching is latest mission (due to the concern that engine cracks pose a risk - for later manned launches), I think we should hold off on a change here. The reporter behind the mentioned article is not specialized in Space technology and it may very well be a misunderstanding on his part. Lklundin (talk) 21:38, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't see anyone else reporting anything about delays. I don't see where universityherald got that from. spaceflightnow.com lists Feb 14, reuters lists Feb 14, launchphotography.com lists Feb 14, ... --mfb (talk) 17:51, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

[1] states this issue "could further delay the first launches of the Falcon 9 rocket with people on board" which seems a direct contradiction. LP updated date for unmanned cargo mission to ISS to 17th Feb from 14th. (Also mention of Feb 2017 mission(s?) has been changed in article. So it looks like it was a misunderstanding about whether Feb mission to ISS is manned or not. crandles (talk) 16:53, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Different delay now for Iridium until Mid June blamed on SpaceX backlog. [2] Backlog at Vandenburg? There is SHERPA but should be able to do a launch per month or so from V shouldn't they? Could this mean they are/will try to do Falcon Heavy demo from V before Mid June? Speculation has no place in article but seems an odd delay doesn't it and maybe figuring out the plans might be relevant at some stage? crandles (talk) 15:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Maybe some chain reaction from the overall rocket production pipeline. The February launches are delayed as well. --mfb (talk) 16:05, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Feb seems more likely pad related issues. If 'overall rocket production pipeline' has problems when only launched 2 cores in 5 months how will it cope with 2 launches a month? Perhaps conversion (and working out what refurbishment is needed etc) of returned cores to FH side boosters has completely stopped new production sounds more plausible? crandles (talk) 13:33, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

SpaceX at CRS-10 Post launch conference: Next launch from LC-39A in approximately two weeks

I am unsure if this WP:primary is enough for an update of the schedule, but at the CRS-10 post-launch press conference Jessica Jensen, Dragon Mission Manager, SpaceX was asked (about 26 minutes in):

"When is the next target launch from 39A, when is the date?", to which she answered:

"In approximately two weeks". The follow-up question was inaudible, except maybe for the word "date", to which she answered:

"I don't have the date off the top of my head, but it's in approximately two weeks."

Two weeks after February 19 is March 5, so it looks like February will see no further launches from LC-39A.

Lklundin (talk) 09:55, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

References

Fix the SLC-3E list of F9/F Heavy launches

The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_AFB_Space_Launch_Complex_4 article has a list of "upcoming" launches which appears to be more than a year old. (Confusingly, the table is hidden unless you click on 'show'.) It's got a lot of obsolete info in it. Greg (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Largely done, hopefully. crandles (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks C-randles, I did some housekeeping there as well. — JFG ^talk 15:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Heavy Demo target date

Article has been reverted to Summer 2017 after couple of recent changes.

[3] dated 7 March says target for SLC40 pad is August and this comes before at least 60 days of work to 39A before heavy demo. This puts it in Q4 though I suppose work on 39A might start at end of July but if it is at least 60 days and then you need a few days for static fire test etc...

SFN-LS has just changed to Q3 dated 8 March.

Should we make it Q4 with nsf link as ref or Q3 or leave as summer 2017? I would favour Q4. crandles (talk) 14:22, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I think that we should make it Q4. I don't think that there is any way for them to get SLC-40 online in August and have it launching in Q3 at 39A for the reasons stated. --Offtomars (talk) 22:30, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it looks unrealistic; the "Summer 2017" tentative date was based on a February 17 utterance by Gwynne Shotwell… Just a couple weeks later it clearly doesn't make sense and I agree with using the sfn_ls "Q3" estimate. Of course that makes the timing of the STP-2 mission for 30 September totally out of the question; not a big deal as it was sourced to an off-the-record comment from January, so I agree with the "needs update" statement that C-randles just added there. However the Q4 slippage for Heavy Demo looks like an over-interpretation of what the Chris Bergin report actually says. Unless we get a directly-sourced mention of Q4, all our enlightened opinions can be discounted as WP:OR. So I'll yank it back to Q3 citing sfn, and we all know it's probably late Q3 at best… — JFG ^talk 08:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Not quite sure how I am over-interpreting the Chris Bergin report. It seems quite clear the return to slc40 operations comes before work that is "at least 60 days" and that work is required before Heavy launch. The relevant parts are "Meanwhile, SLC-40 is preparing for a return to operations in August, in turn initiating the second phase of work on 39A for Falcon Heavy. .... It was also noted that SpaceX is working a plan that involves returning operations to SLC-40 before then working on 39A to prepare it for the maiden launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket. This work will take “at least 60 days” to complete, focusing on the 39A TEL table – which is currently specific to the single core Falcon 9 ... The debut of the Falcon Heavy is not expected to take place until the latter part of the year". While this doesn't specifically say "Q4" it does provide limits that are effectively NET 1 Oct and still this year making it enough of a ref for Q4. crandles (talk) 13:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I understand your calculations; however the source quoted by Bergin is not very authoritative either. They could be early, they could be late, we can't really tell yet. Suppose, as he says, that August flights move to LC-40, starting with CRS-12 on August 1st, and the last East Coast flight before that (currentky Koreasat 5A) lifts off on July 15, then prep work for Heavy takes 60 days and the demo flight can take place in the last half of September. See how I addressed the uncertainty by expanding the {{needs update}} notes for both Heavy missions. — JFG ^talk 22:55, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't say August flights move to LC40, it says target for return [of pad] to operations is August and it is going to take a few days after that for static fire test etc so CRS12 on 1 Aug from LC40 is not consistent with the article. However, it isn't impossible for CRS12 to be delayed by a couple of weeks and then your timetable of commencing work July 16 might be possible. I agree return to operations then start work does not seem efficient. Still everything has to work out beautifully: Target of August becomes completed very early August, CRS12 delayed, at least 60 days work is done in less than ~65 days, Falcon Heavy is ready and doesn't have any glitches causing delays, no weather delays... Maybe with all that you could get falcon heavy demo launch in last few days of September. A little unrealistic but not completely impossible. Q3 seems inappropriate, would it be better to say NET 'Late September'? crandles (talk) 12:23, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we're deep into WP:OR at this point. If we stick to sfn_ls source, we must say Q3 and add the explanation in the note, as it stands now. If we want to be more precise, we can say "Sept-Oct" and refer only to the Bergin article. In any case, hopefully there will be some solid sourcing in the next few weeks. — JFG ^talk 22:28, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

SpaceX is still targeting end of summer for FH. Summary of press conference. I don't know their plans for the launch pads, but planned work on them cannot be a showstopper. --mfb (talk) 12:56, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Landing at LZ-1 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 13

Is it incorrect to still refer to this site as "Launch Complex 13" even though it is no longer used for launches and the official name is not Landing Zone 1 (LZ1)?

user:mnw2000 11:02, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Do we have a relevant cite? LP says "This mission will land its first stage back at Cape Canaveral about eight minutes after launch." Presumably that will be LZ1 or whatever it should be called. But perhaps we shouldn't say more than the cite so perhaps we should cut it back to "Landing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station."? (Also not sure where the cite for LEO is but if landing back at CC, that does seem likely (inevitable?).) crandles (talk) 12:26, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Considering the signage at the Cape calls it Landing Zone 1, I see no reason to not refer to it as such. — Huntster (t @ c) 13:52, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Order of landing outcome bars

The "flights by mission outcome" graph has losses at the bottom, now "flights by landing outcome" has them at the top. I think we should stay consistent, put both at the top or both at the bottom. Insertcleverphrasehere, what do you think? --mfb (talk) 09:44, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I put the launch failures at the top because they are essentially synonymous with "no attempt", though it is best to differentiate. This allows an easy visualization of landing failures stacked on the bottom, then landing successes, and then "no attempts" at the top where they are out of the way and essentially just tacked on. EDIT: to make this more clear I have changed "Launch failure (no attempt)" to "No attempt (launch failure)", hope that helps. InsertCleverPhraseHere 09:51, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@mfb If this doesn't suit I would say that the next best option is to remove the launch failures from the graph altogether, as they are not entirely needed and I only included them for completeness. InsertCleverPhraseHere 10:07, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

What about moving the launch failures to the top in "by mission outcome"? --mfb (talk) 14:22, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Could do, but I think they look better at the bottom. The more I think about it though, the less I think I was right to add the launch failure missions to the landing outcome graph, it just adds to the clutter and doesn't serve any useful purpose and actually obfuscates the 'no attenmpt' launch failures (where they actually planned to make an attempt on the drone ship) from the actual 'no attempt' launches that were not attempted for other reasons. I'm going to go ahead and remove them. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 14:38, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Agree they should not be there. — JFG ^talk 16:23, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I had added them in originally, but it was reverted. I can see the case for not having them, but the only thing I would like to see (if consensus is to not display them) is changing the title changed to 'Flight landings by outcome' as non-attempts are flights that are not displayed. --Natural R_X 17:53, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it works fine as "Flights by landing outcome", i.e. for flights that did not attempt landing, we still list the flight, but state that the "landing outcome" was "no attempt". The only flights we don't list are those where landing is not applicable, i.e. it never completed its launch. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 20:07, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Launch Sites -- Cape Canaveral vs Vanderberg:

Since Vandenberg AFB and Cape Canaveral are situated far from each other, it should be possible for SpaceX to schedule launches from both sites at the same time or within a few days of each other. It's not like having 2 launch sites near each other like LC-39B and LC-40. Surely SpaceX has sufficient personnel to carry out this kind of system? Then the Iridium launches would not need to be delayed, especially the 2nd flight for 11-20 which is already 2 months behind schedule and even then the present tentative date is not certain. Abul Bakhtiar (talk) 12:37, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

It may be possible to launch two rockets back-to-back at the two sites, however SpaceX does not plan to do that. We, as editors, do not know why unless a source tells us. I assume SpaceX doesn't want to double up on launch control staff. --Frmorrison (talk) 14:01, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, AFAIK the current plan is to not have multiple launch staff. Of course that can and probably will change as launch cadence picks up, but for now that is not the case. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:48, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Flight 33

• https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/1/15489586/spacex-falcon-9-nrol-76-rocket-landing-success
• https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8441041/stage_1_transonic_regime.gif
• https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1HYfOJpgAeLObNDaQJVI30w5VLs=/0x0:640x296/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:640x296):gifv():no_upscale()/cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8441041/stage_1_transonic_regime.gif

There's a gif someone made for Flight 33 from SpaceX's feed. If the original SpaceX feed has a compatible license, then there's a gif available for use. -- 70.51.200.162 (talk) 16:35, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately we do not currently know if the SpaceX YouTube feed has a compatible license. The OTRS statement only covers images from the Flickr feed and the SpaceX website image archive. — Huntster (t @ c) 18:11, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Color schemes for stats

@Insertcleverphrasehere: I don't like the new color schemes you applied to stats on launcher versions and launch sites. The previous colors were designed to make clear visual distinctions between:

• single-stick and triple-stick variants of the launch vehicle (shades of blue for the various Falcon 9 evolutions, olive for Heavy)
• geographical locations of launch sites, with shades of brown for the East Coast and purple for the West Coast

Would you mind restoring them and perhaps discussing how to make them "easier on the eyes", as you noted, while keeping the aforementioned visual distinctions? — JFG ^talk 16:48, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't getting that from the colour scheme, seemed random to me and the colours jarring. The falcon 9/falcon heavy scheme I intended to go with was blue for the falcon 9/purple for the Heavy. I'll revert them if you like, But I don't consider it an improvement. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 19:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Ultimately, color choices are subjective. Let's get input from other editors. — JFG ^talk 08:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with @JFG: Launches to the polar orbit belong to a different category than launches to LEO or GEO. Thus, Vandenberg should have a more distinct shade. The same with Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy distinction. I like the current color scheme. — Adamlibusa (talk) 09:15, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I prefer the current (=the old) version over the one in between. Block 5 should get a color that is easier to distinguish from 1.1 and FT. --mfb (talk) 20:24, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

As the block 5 is an iteration of the falcon 9, it should be some shade of blue, but still be distinguishable from the other blue shades used for the 1.1, 1.0 and full thrust, this can be fine tuned later after the launch of the Block 5, but something to keep in mind. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 22:11, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I changed the color (still commented out) to "Blue", that should work. __ __ __ __ / __ --mfb (talk) 01:40, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Perfect. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 03:12, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Core numbers

Being that the core numbers are visible on the side of the rockets, it may make sense to start listing that on the table of launches. This will become more important once cores start to refly later this year. As an example, you can see that the core number for the upcoming EchoStar 23 flight is "30" from a photo posted here. There was some discussion higher up about adding it but after a short discussion the number was just removed. --StuffOfInterest (talk) 16:35, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

See end of [4] for the discussion. In short:

Falcon 9 Flight X (purely sequential) F9-XX (SpaceX flight numbers, mainly sequential) B1XXX-X (first stage serial numbers) so F9-30 is neither a flight number nor a core serial number and were consequently removed from table in article. If you have a good source for the B1xxx-x numbers that might be useful. crandles (talk) 18:24, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@Savemaxim: Thanks for adding booster serial numbers to the page. However we need sources to keep this information. Where does it come from? — JFG ^talk 09:55, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The ones I added came from reddit see links in edit summaries 13:37 and 13:42(UTC+1) 1 May edits or were already in article. I don't see where B1027 went. Also Jason3 serial number seems lacking, if that was B1018 then it seems numbering started from B1001 with the third flight which seems a bit strange. So it does seem we need sources to at least sort out these oddities. crandles (talk) 11:10, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The B1027 serial may be reserved for the modified centre core of Falcon Heavy (just speculation on my part). We do need sources; somebody mentioned L2 earlier but that's a private forum, not acceptable as RS. — JFG ^talk 11:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I originally added in the landing column and that seemed appropriate as the serial number applies to the part that lands not the whole rocket. I was wondering if 'Ground pad' and 'Drone ship' should be replaced with LZ1 OCISLY or JRTI. Extra column is pushing most launches on to three lines instead of two. "B1xxx ref OCISLY Success" may fit on two lines more often. crandles (talk) 11:24, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I think "drone ship" is enough information (and this was discussed earlier). Agree with you that an extra column may be overkill. If we end up keeping the booster serial numbers, I would suggest adding them to the rocket variant column; that would keep everything on two lines. — JFG ^talk 11:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi! A have added extra column to track future launches from core perspective. It was impossible with landing column only. I have taken info from Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/cores) Savemaxim (talk) 13:08, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Why are these numbers being added to the table when they are not reliably sourced? Reddit is not acceptable, since it is user generated. — Huntster (t @ c) 21:43, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I have now placed the booster identifiers in the rocket version column, and added journalistic sources where I found them.[5] We must look for better sources than Reddit for the other serial numbers, but I kept the data for now. — JFG ^talk 11:34, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Core of JCSAT-14?

The table currently states that the core of JCSAT-14 is B1022. However, I found this source that states it's "S1-024", which might imply that the core for JCSAT-14 was actually B1024. As both B1024 and B1022 are unsourced core numbers in the table, it could make sense if they have been mixed up and/or merely assumed to be launched in sequence. Reddit, however, states it's core B1024 , but I think the source they're stating doesn't unambiguously identify the booster correctly (if you read the Facebook page in their source, the photographer didn't actually see the number, it seems). Should we trust the (unnamed) journalist of Spaceflight 101 (who also got the booster ID wrong), or the Reddit community? Or maybe not including unsourced booster numbers might be the best approach, after all? The true iMAniaC (talk) 08:00, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

S1-024 most likely means "stage 1 of flight 24", whereas B1022 is the booster construction serial number (see previous threads for details). There has been a consistent difference of 2 between booster serial numbers and flight numbers as counted internally by SpaceX. It would be odd that B1022 and B1024 were swapped. (Of course, everything from Reddit is considered unsourced, but it's better to have realistic unsourced information than no information at all.) — JFG ^talk 09:11, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

That makes sense, thank you! The true iMAniaC (talk) 11:13, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

References

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Reverted as false positive. — JFG ^talk 10:45, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

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False positives at spaceflightnow.com reverted; historic launch manifests at spacex.com reviewed and archived at appropriate dates in 2012 and 2013. — JFG ^talk 10:47, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

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Spaceflight industries launch date or multiple launches

Does qz.com spaceil the israeli team competing for the google lunar xprize wont make it to the starting line mean SHERPA and Sun Synch Express is delayed to 2018 or is SpaceIL launch a different launch contracted for by Spaceflight Industries?

([6] indicates SpaceIL bought a co-lead spot with Spaceflight Industries.) We only have one such launch listed and SpaceX manifest [7] also has only one such launch listed. Can this be used to push it back to 2018 and re-add SpaceIL to payloads or is it too uncertain? crandles (talk) 10:31, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

My general advice: if the info is not explicitly stated in a reliable source per WP:V, it's probably too uncertain. Launch schedules, beyond a certain point, are difficult to pin down anyway. Cheers! Skyraider1 (talk) 10:43, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Payload

Why is here the payload of the Dragon capsules used instead of the payload of the Falcon 9 (Dragon + Dragon payload)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.220.64.159 (talk) 18:00, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Convention. Dragon is like another stage delivering the actually useful things to the ISS. It underestimates the rocket performance massively, of course. I guess we could add the Dragon mass in brackets if we find a reliable source for it. --mfb (talk) 19:34, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Also, as mfb hints, ease of cites. Accurate information about net payload is released by NASA and generally makes it into the press somewhere. I'd love to have gross numbers but they're just not out there. Computing from the Dragon dry mass isn't right either because (a) NOR, (b) there's no reason to think every Dragon has the same dry mass, and (c) propellant. Palmwiz (talk) 14:50, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

X-37B first mission for USAF, or no?

Based on an already cited source I added (over two edits) the comment that X-37B will be the first USAF launch for SpaceX: [8].

This was relatively quickly removed by Dbsseven: [9]

- who explained in the edit summary that DSCOVR was the first SpaceX launch for USAF. Now, the article on DSCOVR says that it is a NASA/NOAA mission, but is does cite one source, a SpaceX press release which states that DSCOVR was a launch for the USAF, although this information is not used in that article. So which version is correct, the SpaceX press release, or the various other sources, that DISCOVR was not a USAF launch (and rather that X-37B will be)? Thanks. Lklundin (talk) 13:09, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

There are a number of sources which state the Air Force's role in DSCOVR including NOAA, NASA, and third party sources. These can all be added to the DSCOVR launch info, but add little to the already cited source and seems like citation overkill. Unfortunately, this also gets into some tricky language of the original X-37B source. This is the first USAF mission launched by SpaceX but not the first USAF launch. (USAF contracted the DSCOVR launch as a trial run for USAF mission launches in the future.) Dbsseven (talk) 14:26, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

References

Charts with coloured lines between

Why do the charts render with coloured lines of one pixel width when the input is zero? Is there any way to avoid this? It looks rather amateurish and unprofessional. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 07:24, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Fixed by קיפודנחש (aka kipod), who fixed the chart module itself (it was a bug). Good work mate! Looks so much better. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 00:12, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Future launch landing plans

I have just noticed that there is no place in the future launches table that indicates weather a future launch intends to land or not (or either on land r at sea). Is this intended? I have noticed in the past notes indicating that no landing was to be attempted in the text of the entry, but perhaps we should have a box in the table devoted to "landing intentions" or something similar rather than only mentioning it when no landing is to be attempted, especially as there may be information available as to weather they intend a launch pad landing, sea landing, or no attempt. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 11:53, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Often we only get a confirmation very late. If the rocket flies expendable that can get announced well in advance, but I don't see frequent announcements that the rocket will be recovered, it is simply the default now. Unless we find some source for the recovery plans for several launches in advance, I don't think we should add a separate column. --mfb (talk) 00:22, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

That is a fair point. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 00:46, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Agree with mfb, and this issue was discussed before with the same conclusion: such a column would be mostly empty hence superfluous. — JFG ^talk 03:39, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I am convinced. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 04:35, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Counting the rows in a table ?

User JFG performed this revert: [10] citing all of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH and WP:NOTSOURCE. This amounts to forbidding a count of rows in any table in Wikipedia without citing a separate WP:RS for the actual count, a clearly preposterous reasoning. So I am suggesting a self-revert. Posting here since the topic may be of interest to other editors. Lklundin (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

"On that day 16 SpaceX launches had a planned (NET) date in 2017" well I count 15 now but even if the number was unquestionably true and reliably sourced, what does it mean? Musk is in a better position to know they are only going to get 12 away this year and NET means some may well be delayed to 2018. So I don't think the sentence has any place in that section on forecasts of total numbers that serves as a warning that not all the listed launches will necessarily take place. So I think it should remain removed but for different reasons. crandles (talk) 18:32, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@Lklundin: I have no objection to performing WP:CALC and have used it on occasion, for example when a particular source doesn't explicitly give aggregate numbers in a list. However, our list of future launches culls information from many sources, which have varying levels of accuracy and are not updated in sync; some sources for launch dates are more than a year old, while some others are totally fresh. Therefore, adding up the launch announcements doesn't make much sense, hence the WP:SYNTH tag. I concede it was not really WP:OR because each launch is sourced to the best of our collective knowledge. The Wikipedia process can be credited for having compiled the most accurate SpaceX launch manifest on the Internet – even specialized forums are sometimes not as precise. That being acknowledged, when a top SpaceX official like Gwynne Shotwell or Elon Musk makes a public statement on their state of readiness or on their future plans, we should not second-guess them; we should not trust them blindly either, but as usual report their statements, properly dated and attributed. We are not in the business of fact-checking Musk's spot announcement of 12 launches just because we happen to have compiled a list of 15 or 16 launches. Launch dates come and go, we're not even sure whether some payloads will be combined (see Paz and SAOCOM for example); we even had past "firm missions" that were totally cancelled overnight (ABS-8 comes to mind,[11] SpaceIL is in limbo). Overall, I appreciate the intent behind this edit but I don't think it helps readers much. — JFG ^talk 20:37, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

@JFG: OK, I think that is a fair enough statement, especially the argument that there is quite a variation in the age of the various sources cited in the table. I guess the comparison with the number of possible launches remaining in 2017 with Musk's tweet could hint exactly at this, that 3-4 launches in the table are now more likely to be postponed or canceled. As a general improvement, a different approach could be to simply extend the table so it also explicitly states the number of entries in it. This number could possibly be added automatically or at least with each change of the number of rows in the table. That would give an overview of the possible number of upcoming launches for the year. We could even add a caveat, summarizing your above points that the number of rows _cannot_ be taken literally as the number of expected launches that year, due to the reasons you state. Lklundin (talk) 05:52, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

We're down to 14 launches now… — JFG ^talk 11:58, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Parachute Failure Landings

Throughout the page there are statements the Falcon 9 suffered from parachute failures during landing attempt. Two articles are cited to support this assertion:

1. https://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/001/100603prelaunch/ - Falcon 9 demo launch will test more than a new rocket "Parachutes aboard the Falcon 9 first stage should deploy to slow the vehicle's fall back into the Atlantic Ocean."

2. https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/09/falcon-rockets-to-land-on-thei.html - Falcon rockets to land on their toes "SpaceX's president, admitted: "We have recovered pieces of the first stages." The first stages weren't even getting as far as deploying their parachutes – they were breaking up during atmospheric re-entry."

Neither article states there were failures with the parachutes. The second article specifically states the first stages broke up before parachutes could be deployed.

Rather than make any changes to the article immediately it would be better to wait for commentary and new citations. Suggest waiting a reasonable period before making changes to current content. Jleipold (talk) 02:51, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

If 'Parachutes' and 'failure' are viewed as two different statements that the mode of attempted recovery was parachutes and the outcome was failure then this is not wrong in the same way that 'Drone ship' and 'failure' does not mean the drone ship failed. While 'failure prior to parachute' might be clearer as to what happened, I am not sure it is necessary. What is wrong in the COTS demo section seems to be that parachutes at speed was not actually/properly tested so it is wrong to say the flight tested ... the parachutes at speed. I think adding 'intended to test' prior to parachutes at speed will fix this. crandles (talk) 12:26, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

As there seemed a lack of discussion over 10 days, I have changed this by adding 'intended to test'. crandles (talk) 14:22, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Renaming to "List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flights"

Since SpaceX is now routinely landing their Falcon 9 first stages and some of them have already reflown I propose changing the title to "List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flights". Best regards, jpkoester1 (talk) 08:44, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

What would be the benefit of this name change? We can call them "flights", "launches" or "missions", more or less indifferently. — JFG ^talk 10:46, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

To me the word flight encompasses more than the launch; launch being the first phase and landing being the last phase of a flight. Since the landings/landing attempts as well as the satellite deployments make up a significant part of the content I thought that flight would be a better word to descripe article content. "Missions" from my point of view would have the same effect. However, since english ist not my native language I might be missing some of the subtleties. jpkoester1 (talk) 14:01, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• The word 'flight' to me implies a lifting wing like an airplane. Prefer the current title over the proposed title. What do we use for most similar articles? we should follow WP:CONSISTENCY if they are interchangeable. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 19:00, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

• @Insertcleverphrasehere: Category:Falcon rocket launches indicates that despite the category name and this list page using "launches", all other launches have used "flight". Additionally, sources in each of the individual flight articles appear to support the term "flight". Appable (talk | contributions) 05:33, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Alright. Per WP:CONSISTENCY, in the absence of any other arguments the other way, this proposal seems sensible to me. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 06:30, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@Appable: I'm not convinced about sources. Usage of "Falcon 9 launch"[12] outside of Wikipedia (293,000 hits) gives about 6 times as many results as "Falcon 9 flight"[13] (50,000 hits) and 12 times more than "Falcon 9 mission"[14] (24,000 hits). "Launch" remains the dominant term of art. — JFG ^talk 07:56, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: All lists for other rockets use the word "launches": see {{Spaceflight lists and timelines}} which lists the following lists by rocket type:

• List of Ariane launches
• List of Atlas launches
• List of Black Brant launches
• List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches
• List of Long March launches
• List of Proton launches
• List of R-7 launches (including Semyorka, Molniya, Vostok, Voskhod and Soyuz)
• List of Scout launches
• List of Thor and Delta launches
• List of Titan launches
• List of V-2 test launches
• List of Zenit launches

Consistency would have us keep "launches" for Falcons as well. — JFG ^talk 08:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@JFG: Huh, interesting. I should have checked that myself, thanks. So the exact opposite happens if you search for "Falcon 9 flight X" vs "Falcon 9 launch X". This is probably because SpaceX uses that nomenclature for flights, for example this video. So it seems like a specific launch is a flight, but the launches are collectively still launches? Appable (talk | contributions) 08:06, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Here's how other launch providers name theirs: Arianespace calls each mission "Ariane flight VA-234", "Vega flight VV-10" or "Soyuz flight VS-14" (V is for "Vol", flight in French), but the collective list of flights is called their "launch status" and they count "7 launches in 2017". ULA (Atlas) calls them "launches" of "missions", apparently with "launch" focusing on the rocket/supplier and "mission" on the payload/customer. Glavkosmos (Soyuz) generally uses "launches", and sometimes "space flights" when referring to spacecraft missions. ILS (Proton) uses "launch" 42 times, "mission" 11 times and "flight" twice. I guess the industry overall is still talking about launches. Maybe 10 years from now after rocket reuse becomes the industry standard, they will switch to flights… — JFG ^talk 16:54, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• @Insertcleverphrasehere: semantically, rockets do fly - ballistic flight is still a "flight". So the word is perfectly ok to use here. However, using "flight" would mean that pre-launch failures (e.g. Amos-6) should not be part of the list, right? Merkhet (talk) 08:45, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

yes, they do fly, I was just saying that personally it didn't work as well for me, but admit that WP:CONSISTENCY is more important. Pre flight failures are sitll included in a list of flights, because they were intended to fly. (using that logic, they wouldn't have been 'launches' either). — InsertCleverPhraseHere 21:06, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Improve lede for featured list candidate?

Looking at the featured list criteria I think that this article is very nearly up to scratch for it. I think it only fails on criteria #2 "It has an engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope and inclusion criteria." I wonder if we could put a bit of focus on improving the lede of this article so that it can be nominated as a featured list. As much as I'd like to do it myself, I think there are others here that are more intimately knowledgeable on the subject that might be better at it, so I thought I'd bring it up here before trying to have a crack at it myself. — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 00:26, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I added some text, feel free to change/remove/expand/... it. We could mention the landings somehow, but I'm not sure how. --mfb (talk) 03:06, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

@mfb Good work! I have done a copy edit, and worked the landing statistics in as well. IMO there is not much point in the lede in bringing up landings that weren't attempted, or 'ocean successes' that weren't recovered, so I simply stated that there were 13 successful landings and recoveries out of 18 attempts. — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 03:26, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Added reflights. I'm not sure how the stability criterion is interpreted - this list changes frequently by design. Not day to day, but with ~2 launches per month there is quite some activity at the border between past and future launches. --mfb (talk) 03:41, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

The stability criterion I think is meant to apply to edit warring or ongoing content disputes. In this case the list is quite stable, but is simply added to over time as more launches are performed. There are many lists where this is similar (lists of ongoing TV shows, lists of government rulers, discography lists etc). I've nominated the article, as I think it now meets the criteria. — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 03:44, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Okay, let's see what happens. I think you also have to add it to Wikipedia:Featured list candidates (step 5 there). --mfb (talk) 03:56, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Good point. I got distracted :) — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 04:05, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

FYI I'm writing a lead section; should be ready within a couple days. I also wonder whether this qualifies as a list article: there is a lot more in there than the list of launches. It's rather a timeline of Falcon 9 evolution with key milestones, full launch history and expected future missions. Does this kind of article qualify under "Featured list" criteria? — JFG ^talk 23:23, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, I lost my draft lead and saw that you wrote one in the meantime. Will sleep on it and check again tomorrow night. — JFG ^talk 23:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

List of SpaceX launches?

Clearly this is intended to be a list of SpaceX launches, particularly commercial ones. Why don't we include adding a section on the Falcon 1 launches to this article, and change the name to List of SpaceX launches. This makes sense from a launch history standpoint anyway, as SpaceX's first commercial launches were with Falcon 1. In future, Falcon Heavy launches are likely to me interrelated with ITS launches anyway, so they will likely be covered here as well. It is a more WP:CONCISE title but also conveniently keeps everything in one place. What do you guys think? — InsertCleverPhraseHere 16:17, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

This idea has been discussed and rejected earlier. I agree that the current article title is a mouthful, and I'd rather split off the Falcon Heavy into their own list when they start flying. — JFG ^talk 16:29, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I was not aware of that discussion, (I did search the archives for move requests but did not come across it because it was informal like this one). In any case, that is a different proposal (List of Falcon Launches), and the result of that proposal had no clear consensus at all: 3 Opposed (one of which would not apply to this title), 3 Neutral, and 3 Supporting including the nominator.

I'm keen to see what people think. To address the oppose concerns of some of the users in that old thread, there is not a lot of material to bring over from the Falcon 1 article in any case, most of the information on it would stay over at Falcon 1, and a short list similar to the first half of this one would be added to this article just before the Falcon 9 list starts. The current "Launch History" section of this article can easily accommodate Falcon 1 launches in the graphs simply by making the bars slightly narrower, and would be clearly marked as a different launch vehicle in the upper left graph. The resulting graphs would then show the history of all SpaceX launches. The lower right graph could use a separate category (Not applicable or N/A) to denote Falcon 1 launches, which we could also use for the failed Falcon 9 launches to solve the unrelated issue of the height columns being different between graphs that continue to confuse people (there have been quite a few questions about it).

These two changes, a short extra list and adding to the graphs, would be the only additions to the article that would be needed I think. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 21:19, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I support this for now, but we should bear in mind that by the time the ITS launches in the 2020s, this article will have probably been split up anyway. Sooner or later it will need to be split, maybe into a general overview article List of SpaceX launches which doesn't go into detail about all launches, plus detailed articles with titles like List of SpaceX launches in 2017. (This article is currently at 165,000 bytes – significantly greater than the limit at which articles are normally split – and a hypothetical List of SpaceX launches in 2017 would take up 43,000 bytes). Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 03:08, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@Chessrat Yes, I think that it is inevitable that this article will get too long for a single article, but this proposed change doesn't really impact that eventuality much at all. I agree that separating out detailed articles by year will be the logical approach at that point, with a main overview article (this one), that has simpler lists with single line entries. However, at the moment, with or without the Falcon 1 material, this article is still manageable and will probably remain so for at least another 6 months to a year at least. — InsertCleverPhraseHere 03:27, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@Chessrat: Article size is well within limits: the 165 kB you mention is the size of wikitext, which is irrelevant for readability purposes. Readable prose is roughly 11k characters, then adding text in the tables yields roughly 40k characters, whereas a split is recommended at 70k+. Given that we already list the known SpaceX manifest over the next two years, the article shouldn't reach the recommended size limit until 2019–2020, so we have plenty of time to reconsider. A split into multiple articles by years would be clumsy to navigate: Readers first! — JFG ^talk 12:20, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

All of our "List of launches" articles are grouped by rocket type or rocket family, it would be most unusual to create a list by manufacturer. Falcon 1 is a very different vehicle, ITS will be yet a vastly different one, we can point to their own launch lists but they should not be mixed. Falcon Heavy is on the fence: it can be considered a variant of the Falcon 9 or a different-enough vehicle to have its own list. The closest rocket architecture to Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy is the Delta IV / Delta Heavy couple. Initially they were covered in a single article, then Delta Heavy was split out. However the list of Delta launches still includes all the legacy Thor-Delta variants since the 1950s; we probably wouldn't set it up this way today. The article says: While the Delta-IV retains the name of the Delta family of rockets, the vehicle was a new design, rather than an evolution of the older Delta boosters. For consistency, we should split out a List of Delta IV launches. — JFG ^talk 12:32, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree with JFG - Falcon 1's only relation to Falcon 9 is a name and the SpaceX. It's a completely different design, as well as a new rocket engine. The latter is a point in favour of keeping Falcon Heavy in this article (as well as the fact that Falcon Heavy will be reusing previously flown Falcon 9 rockets). Also, 5 Falcon 1 launches would add additional 4 years to our statistics plots, which would affect readability. Going further, similar lists exist for rocket families, but they have a totally simplified pages with only an overall plot of the launches (by outcome) preceded with a list of links to articles with more detailed lists - split by decades. Applying this to Falcon family, all the falcon 1 flights would go into one list, while all the other (currently known) flights (9 and Heavy) would fall squarely in another. Just my 5 cents. Merkhet (talk) 13:29, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@JFG: We do list the manifest, but assuming SpaceX gets new contracts at the rate they launch old ones, it will keep its size while the past launches table grows. At the current launch rate we double the table size by mid 2019, if SpaceX increases the rate more we could reach flight 76 in 2018 already. We have more than 40 flights listed in 2017/2018. While some might get delayed, there is also the option that more are added (e. g. satellite constellation test objects). SpaceX hopes to get hundreds of flights with F9, if nothing goes wrong we will have to split the article at some point. "By decade" will make the list too long, I expect that we will need "by year". But then we can keep F9/FH together, because by year the lists won't be too long. Another argument to keep them together is the flexibility: We had FH flights moving to F9 already, and we had expendable F9 flights that would use a resuable FH in the future.

I think for now we should keep the structure as it is. If the table gets too long, split it up (2010-2017, 2018, 2019?). Keep F1 out. ITS will get its own article anyway. --mfb (talk) 16:04, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

@Mfb: I largely agree with your assessment. We have plenty of time to decide what to do at the end of 2018, if indeed launch rates increase dramatically. I would also surmise that in such a case, launches would become so routine that we wouldn't bother with 4 or 5 lines of details per flight, so I can imagine a separate 2020+ table in a much more compact format. See for example Ariane 5#List of past missions which is remarkably terse, yet informative enough. Surely, daily launches of identical satellites going into a 1000+ constellation can be described in a single line each. — JFG ^talk 16:35, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I agree with JFG. The scope of this list article should remain Falcon 9 tech only, which for now includes both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. Falcon 1 is an entirely diff launch vehicle, of an entirely diff class, long-retired. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:22, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

CRS2

There are a couple of citations needed for 2020 date for CRS-19 and CRS-20. CRS2 is supposed to start late 2019 and the current schedule has Aug 2019 for CRS-18. How do we get rid of citation needed tags. We simply don't know if CRS2 contracts might be listed as something like CRS2-1 starting in 2019 such that there might not be a CRS-19 and CRS-20. Is it best to just delete these flights until we know what is going to happen? crandles (talk) 14:52, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

We could remove the time estimate, or write 2019-2020. Technically 2019 would cover it as all times are NET, but that is probably not the best solution. They are part of the launch manifest, I don't think we should remove them completely. --mfb (talk) 16:10, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

What's wrong with simply keeping the {{cn}} notice until we get an update? — JFG ^talk 17:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Originally, a NASA report of July 2016 listed CRS-14 to CRS-18 for 2018 (page 13) and CRS-19 for May 2019. CRS-20 was extrapolated as happening in 2019 as well. Following a recent update of all forthcoming ISS missions, our source now lists only CRS-14/15 for 2018 and CRS-16/17/18 for 2019. They still list CRS-20 erroneously for that year, while CRS-19 has been removed. I'd be OK with deleting the CRS-19 and CRS-20 entries if there's a rationale not to keep the {{cn}} tag for list review purposes. We could even delete the CRS-19 and CRS-20 articles which are just boilerplate copies of previous missions and still contain obsolete planning dates. Technically there are 6 more CRS missions on the manifest (CRS-21 to 26 as part of the new cargo contract), and nobody knows when they will fly. — JFG ^talk 17:25, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

I was just working through tags managed to find refs to remove 2 and these were only 2 left. I was thinking they might be an issue for gaining Featured List status. Maybe it just isn't an issue in a situation where it is appropriate because there is no known reference available but is likely to be 2020 rather than 2019? Not sure if an tag might be less of a problem for Featured List status? Should we consider what is the criteria for not including 6 CRS2 flights but including all CRS flights? crandles (talk) 22:20, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, any routine missions more than two years in the future could be safely omitted from the list. Better say in prose that a number of further CRS missions are contracted, with a schedule to be determined. That much can easily be corroborated by authoritative sources. — JFG ^talk 23:13, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

 Done – I have removed routine CRS missions from the "2020 and beyond" section until sources give a well-defined schedule for them. — JFG ^talk 05:43, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

FYI, I also added an explanation of the CRS2 contract, together with an undated entry for CRS-19 and CRS-20. That should settle the issue until new information emerges. — JFG ^talk 15:06, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Encyclopedias and the explication of "negative" payloads--those payloads that were not on a given launch

The Formosat row on the recently completed Falcon 9 launch has a statement about what is not included in the payload of this flight.

My sense, this is a detail that should definitely be explicated in the Formosat article; but should not clutter up a high-level summary list article like this one.

So I removed the prose; another editor reverted. So under the standard WP:BRD process, I'll start this discussion.

PROPOSAL: Drop the "negative" payload info from this summary "List of..." article.

• SUPPORT—as OP, I support this proposal to remove the sentence. Rationale provided above. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:18, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• I can see both sides of this. On one hand, this is a thing that didn't happen, so why mention it? On the other hand, with a little more wording, it might provide an interesting data point on just how launch failures impact customers down the line. As a comparison, we regularly mention launch delays in spaceflight articles. Well, if the rocket didn't launch, why mention it? Because it provides some historical context to the overall mission. — Huntster (t @ c) 14:36, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• Concur with Huntster. If it were re-worded, with a source that supports it, as a statement of why the small/light payload was launched, then it would fit. As it is currently written, it is a very odd thing to have in an encyclopedia. N2e (talk) 02:46, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

• Keep – In this case, I would keep the information, because it helps explain to readers why a Falcon 9 is "wasted" to launch a 475-kg spacecraft. Partly because it was originally contracted for a smaller vehicle, and partly because the Sherpa payloads were moved elsewhere. Worth explaining better, probably. — JFG ^talk 15:02, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
• Keep - The mission was planned with a different payload for a long time, I think it is an important part of the mission, and it makes it easier to understand why Falcon 9 launched such a lightweight satellite. --mfb (talk) 22:11, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
• Keep per JFG and mfb. — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 23:16, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Decimal points in graphs

The legends for the y-axis on the launch statistic graphs include a non-integer component... This makes little sense, there's no such thing as a fraction of a launch. Is there a way of fixing this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.17.99.189 (talk) 18:12, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

• Since there doesn't seem to be a way with the chart module to fix this issue, I figured out a temporary solution. I made a 20 high stack of white, with a blank listing in the legend for each graph. This forces the Y axis up a bit, which changes it to an integer only scale (5, 10, 15, 20). This fix should only be needed until we hit 16 launches in a single year, which should be in a couple months (from there, each step up in the y axis only results in integer values being displayed). Aside from a slightly taller graph and a bit of extra whitespace where the 'phantom' legend listing is hiding, there doesn't seem to be any issue with this jury rig (I also checked on mobile). If anyone finds any problems with it, let me know. — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 10:06, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

That's a good temporary trick, thanks. While we are there, I don't think we should single out the "Block 4" variant, because it is currently understood as a minor evolution of Falcon 9 Full Thrust. — JFG ^talk 00:01, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

More missions

SpaceX updated the launch manifest with five more missions. Two I could add to the table. We have another Eutelsat launch and one launch for SSL where I couldn't find more information. The Telkom Indonesia launch was in the list already. --mfb (talk) 14:55, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Oh by the way: According to unreliable sources, SpaceX aims for ~40 launches in 2018, we just have 26 in the list, so they need a lot more contracts to get that. --mfb (talk) 14:57, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

TMF Associates blog: reliable source?

This article claims that two test satellites of the SpaceX satellite constellation will fly as secondary payloads on the Paz launch later this year. I don't see any other source for this claim. The identical initial orbits are confirmed by other sources, so it is very plausible at least. Is that sufficient to include it? --mfb (talk) 21:16, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Though it does appear plausible, nothing indicates that this satisfies the criteria of a reliable source. As a result I'd say it fails verifiability until another more reliable source reports it. Lets wait. — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 21:38, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Re-ignition of second stage in maiden flight?

Contrary to the position of reference ^[5] in the maiden launch section, I don't see anything like that mentioned in the source. For the sixth (!) flight, spacenews.com reports: "the company was unable to demonstrate a reignition of the rocket’s upper stage following the deployment of the [...] satellite". The sentence has been present since the first version, split from Falcon 9. The statement was originally introduced here and got its current reference here, just days after the launch more than 7 years ago. Do I miss something, or is that sentence simply wrong? --mfb (talk) 22:57, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I removed it now. If (!) it is correct and there is a reliable source for it, feel free to put it in again. --mfb (talk) 15:25, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Is this article incomplete for the years following 2019?

This list of launches, which seems to be cited with reliable sources, shows 15 Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy launches in 2019, and another 16 launches in 2020 and following years. This sharply contrasts with this wikipedia article, which shows far fewer scheduled launches in 2019 and later.

Why is this? Is it the case that the citations on that list are insufficient for Wikipedia? Or is this Wikipedia article just incomplete? Chessrat ^{(talk, contributions)} 16:29, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

The reddit spacex community has weaker standards for sources for their wiki. Most of these launches will probably happen, but if they happen in the given year and with exactly this payload is not always clear, and without a reliable source we cannot add them here. If you see launches there that have reliable sources, feel free to list them here. --mfb (talk) 17:04, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Viasat 3

Isn't it moved to Ariane 5? - http://www.arianespace.com/press-release/arianespace-to-launch-two-viasat-high-capacity-satellites/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.220.93.47 (talk) 09:59, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Ariane 5 has two launches but from the refs for this launch in the article dated 10 Feb 2016 (yours is 9 Feb 2016) there is another launch on Falcon Heavy. To try to clarify I have changed ViaSat-3 to ViaSat-3 class satellite. Those ref may be dated but ViaSat is still on SpaceX launch manifest. Hope that sorts this out. crandles (talk) 12:53, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Source for Koreasat at SLC-40

The Spaceflightnow launch schedule doesn't note a pad for Koreasat on 10/14. It seems likely it will be SLC-40 based on other comments, but I haven't seen any hard evidence of it as yet. Is there a source that should be cited here for the pad designation? I only ask versus 'being bold' as I know this page's regular editors are pretty tight about sources and not jumping the gun or making assumptions. aremisasling (talk) 19:32, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. I have reverted the SLC-40 attributions until we see an official announcement or a clear RS. — JFG ^talk 04:39, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't Cape Canaveral vs. Kennedy Space Center be unambiguous? There are just two pads the rocket could potentially launch from. --mfb (talk) 08:57, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Isn't it that 'Cape Canaveral Air Force Station' is sufficiently unambiguous, but Cape Canaveral is a larger place than just the air force station and Kennedy Space Center is close enough to Cape Canaveral that Cape Canaveral is ambiguous. Further, if it was meant to be unambiguous then it would say SLC-40 in same way NROL-52 says "SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida". Better left as either til a better ref comes along, I think. crandles (talk) 11:13, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Right. All pads are at "The Cape", some within CCAFS, others within KSC… — JFG ^talk 22:19, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Koreasat now likely from 39. And the upcoming two launches shifted a bit according to this article. --mfb (talk) 12:02, 26 September 2017 (UTC)