Template talk:Infobox spacecraft class

Suggested new entries: Downmass Capacity and Max Landing g

Since this infobox is now used for (at least some) spaceplanes e.g. HL-20 Personnel Launch System and HL-42 (spacecraft), should we consider adding two new fields:

• Downmass Capacity
• Max Landing g

These two parameters are the important ones for down-cargo. (Also could be useful for e.g. Dragon (spacecraft), even though this doesn't use this infobox at the moment.) I’d envisage the two new fields going near Payload Capacity and Crew Capacity in the list.-- SteepLearningCurve (talk) 18:02, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

First, I have a question: is "downmass" the commonly used term? Is there a regional connection to it? I'm used to calling it "return payload" in the case of the Space Shuttle. Would you object to calling it that? Notice Template:Infobox rocket was modified to take a /payload extension, which can be configured multiple times; I think we should consider using the similar method here, because it allows specifying payloads for multiple regimes (e.g. LEO and geosynchronous, as well as return). JustinTime55 (talk) 19:11, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

I used "downmass" here (and in the HL-42 article itself) because that's the term used here Space logistics#Downmass and in these two:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/04/cargo-up-down-spacexs-dragon-demonstrate-importance-downmass/

http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/eps/eps_data/160022-OTHER-001-001.ppt

The 2014 NASA Industry Day Powerpoint (Slide 18) uses both upmass and downmass which I thought made it official enough to use. Also the Dragon article is by Chris Bergin who is practically an official source (... or maybe that's just in my head ...). Both these are from the last few years though - has the term only come into use recently? Googling "downmass" (with the quotes) gives quite a few hits, but they seem mostly post-2008. Googling "return payload" gives mostly IT-related stuff.

Having said all that, I'd have no objection at all to "Return Payload". But, the way they're used, do you think upmass and downmass apply specifically to LEO, while return payload is much more general, maybe asteroid retrieval? or sample return missions? --SteepLearningCurve (talk) 22:14, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Re-adding the "launch_vehicle" parameter to the template

These days with the SpaceX Falcon 9 becoming the launch vehicle for several different projects which include independently navigated upper stage payloads, I think it might be time to re-add this parameter the launch underscore vehicle parameter back into the list of parameters for this template. Lighthumormonger (talk) 00:15, 16 February 2024 (UTC)