Talk:2017 in spaceflight

Lunar Sample Return

So with the expected launch of Chang'e 5, this year could see the return of lunar sample return missions after 40 years. Unlike asteroid sample returns to date, where the ships were never really in orbit in the first place, so the surface "ascent" wasn't really a launch but a "backing away" maneuver, lunar sample return missions really do land and really do have to launch into orbit to get back to Earth. So, with that in mind, where do we put them? Some Apollo LM launches and Soviet sample-return launches are in years that haven't migrated to the current "x in spaceflight" format, and they alternatively include them in the regular list or in "deep space rendezvous". Ones in years that *have* migrated to the new format have a separate section for "off-world" orbital launches. Will that section be returning this year, or what? Will we need to fix old lists to streamline the format? Astrofreak92 (talk) 14:59, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Sure, there should be a section on orbital launches from other places than Earth. We'll create it when it happens. — JFG ^talk 17:21, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

QB50

Greetings Astrofreak92! I was about to erase all the flags on the QB50 entry at 2017 in spaceflight but I realize it must have been hard work for you to collect the data. Don't you think it's a bit overkill? With the advent of cheap launch services with dispensers such as NanoRacks, there will be many cases where dozens of cubesats are launched on a single rocket. Is it really necessary to list them all? — JFG ^talk 17:19, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

That's why I compressed them into one entry rather than 40. I've tried to compress other "flocks" and multi-satellite missions on other launches into one entry in the same way for the same reason, multi-CubeSat launches are now commonplace and the individual hardware isn't notable. But I do think the missions themselves are still notable, especially QB50. There's a lot of information I'm leaving out because it would be unwieldy but I wasn't sure if there was precedent for "various" or no country flag in that slot. What do you think? Astrofreak92 (talk) 17:26, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@Astrofreak92: On reflection, I removed the flags. With so many countries of origin, they are not really informative, they bludgeon the page and they violate MOS:FLAG. — JFG ^talk 21:19, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that we have another case coming up soon with Cartosat-2D and 82 cubesats flying on an Indian PSLV on 27 January. ISRO hasn't even revealed which cubesats are flying except for 5 of them! — JFG ^talk 21:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Sourcing

@NikitaStupin: Do you have a source for scheduling the second Iridium flight to April 10? In general, could we agree to mention sources next to planned launch dates? Those articles have a list of generic sources but it's really hard to track down what was announced by whom and to verify schedule changes. Please, let's add sources, that will simplify the maintenance job for everybody active on this article and related ones (rockets, spacecraft, spaceports). — JFG ^talk 22:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

@JFG: Please excuse me. It was incorrect information from twitter. Tweet already deleted. NikitaStupin (talk) 04:33, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for double-checking. Now, I'd like to read opinions from other regular contributors to this page: should we mention sources to facilitate WP:Verification of planned launch dates? @Astrofreak92, SkywalkerPL, Grounded Cosmonaut, Fukumoto, Rikifire, Ohsin, and Galactic Penguin SST: What do you think? — JFG ^talk 07:30, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

 Disagree IMHO information like that should be sourced in each article. Launch vehicles have their own planned launches, which have to be sourced, and additionally payloads have an information about launch dates, which again: have to be sourced. Repeating the same sources for the 3rd time seems redundant, and might only lead to a situation where it's out of synch with more in-depth articles. This article should be nothing more than a reflection of articles it links to, an overview of one part of content from them. SkywalkerPL (talk) 11:20, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I typically just reference my source in the edit comment if it's one of the generic sources already listed on the page, I think a good middle ground is to include a citation in the entry itself if the source is *not* one of the generic sources. If the source for the update is one of the generic sources, just note which one it is in the edit summary. Astrofreak92 (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

 Disagree IMHO, this information is too frequency changed. Very many sources its gossip from Reddit, twitter & etc. NikitaStupin (talk) 08:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Precisely, that's a good reason for sourcing: blogs, tweets and forums are usually not accepted as WP:RS, so we need to avoid using them, and document the valid sources. — JFG ^talk 16:24, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

@Astrofreak92: I think it's absolutely fine to reference the generic sources, but keeping this in the edit comment makes it difficult to check the sourcing at a glance. Perhaps we could agree on a few names for the generic sources, e.g. sfn for Spaceflight Now and add quick references in the form <ref name="sfn" />. This would go a long way towards WP:Verifiability, and it seems pretty light to implement. — JFG ^talk 16:24, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I think WP:RS criteria is not applicable for planning launches. Also, many information about Russian launches publishing only by the Russian language. NikitaStupin (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

That's OK, we can refer to Russian sources, see Template:Cite web#Foreign language and translated title. — JFG ^talk 17:39, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

If there's no reliable source for a launch date then we should not publish it at all. Wikipedia is not a tabloid, we shouldn't pursuit the latest news at all costs. I'd much rather have a launch date set to TBD than blogs, tweets or forums as a so-called sources. As for language - it's not an issue at all, as long as source is reliable. Citation templates already support foreign language sources. I'm fine with having sources defined in the articles about payloads or rockets instead of having them here, but abandoning WP:RS all together for planned launches is an absolute no-go in my book. SkywalkerPL (talk) 10:11, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Last flight of Soyuz-U

The next Progress mission will be the last flight of the venerable Soyuz U. When cleaning up the relevant Soyuz pages, I counted 785 flights to date, making this one the 786th. I have explained my calculations and listed my sources in the infobox of Soyuz-U, as follows:

| launches = 785<!-- 775 + 6 w/Ikar + 4 w/Fregat + 1 lost on pad not counted-->
| success = 764
| fail = 22

References

Today Baazaar121 counted 789 flights instead of 786. Why the discrepancy? What are your sources? — JFG ^talk 10:16, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I have restored the count to 786. Let me know if a different source requires changing it again. — JFG ^talk 21:32, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Juno Perijoves

I had been previously including Juno's perijoves in the "Deep Space Rendezvous" section because they were spaced 53 days apart and I figured that was sufficient for notability. Now that the period reduction maneuver has been cancelled and the 53-day period will continue indefinitely, is that the right approach? There is no precedent for a mission design like this except for Ulysses which had a massively elliptical multi-year orbit around the sun, but its close solar encounters lasted months at a time rather than a single day like the Juno perijoves so even then the comparison isn't perfect. Should Perijoves stay in the Deep Space Rendezvous section, or not? Astrofreak92 (talk) 22:43, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The Saturn moon flybys of Cassini are similar, even a bit more frequent. As the perijoves are the main science periods, I support listing them. --mfb (talk) 15:26, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Arianespace flag

 New proposal Given the new stakeholder structure of Arianespace (which was finalized on 31 December 2016) I propose changing flags next to the company (eg. on TBD lists) from to starting with 2017, onwards. This will accurately reflect the international ownership of the company that's currently not reflected in the 201X in spaceflight articles. SkywalkerPL (talk) 10:22, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Voyager 1

Why is there no mention about Voyager 1s 40th anniversary since launch? It being the farthest man made object from Earth is a huge milestone.24.44.69.250 (talk) 02:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

The pages list events of 2017. Nothing special happens to Voyager 1 this year. --mfb (talk) 08:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes something special does happen. Did you even read my comment? 40th anniversary.24.44.69.250 (talk) 05:57, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Anniversaries are not being listed of this series of articles. Only current happenings of the spacecraft if they are important and rare enough. SkywalkerPL (talk) 13:25, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

40th anniversary means something happened 40 years ago. Not this year. The fact that Earth rotated 40 times around the sun since the launch of Voyager has no particular significance for the probe. It will not change anything based on this number. --mfb (talk) 14:51, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Guess we disagree. A probe still operating after 40 years and functioning and sending data and sending data back is definitely something happening now. Not as immediate is as a JUNO orbit or Cassini Orbit but still something active. And you guys keep track of that.

Nice one mfb (talk) 14:51. Real intelligent devolving things. Your a scumbag. I bring up something specific and you like a fool dumb it down with your Earth rotating the Sun comment. Obviousness Im not aiming for that. An advance probe after 39 and half years still working isn't a planet orbiting a star. If you want to argue my point you should bring up something equal to Voyager not something completely unrelated and unintelligible.24.44.69.250 (talk) 01:43, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Insulting other editors is considered disruptive in Wikipedia; at any rate it won't help getting your point across. Please listen to what others have to say about your suggestions and WP:AGF. — JFG ^talk 08:39, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

The fact that the Voyager probes are still working is interesting. But it was interesting a year ago as well, and it will be interesting in a year as well. The time between 1.26 billion seconds and 1.29 billion seconds after launch doesn't have a special significance for the operation of the probe. This time span corresponds to a round number if we (a) take the orbit of Earth as time reference and (b) use the decimal system. So what? --mfb (talk) 10:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Sources for planned suborbital flights?

@Rikifire: Thanks for adding some planned suborbital flights. Do you have sources for the flights and planned dates? I'm particularly doubtful of the Lynx flight, as it seemed that the project was abandoned in 2016 after years of delays. — JFG ^talk 20:43, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Pietrobon's website is my primary source for suborbital flights, then I've searched for informations on many other websites. --Rikifire (talk) 06:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, I've added the source, thanks. Would be great to see Lynx fly! They have been off the radar following the management changes but they did say the project was not abandoned. — JFG ^talk 08:43, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Source for Falcon schedule change?

@NikitaStupin: Do you have a source for this change? The quoted source hasn't moved those flights yet. — JFG ^talk 18:42, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

→ @JFG: Information from Reddit. I think will no five launches from SpaceX in June. We know dates for CRS-11 and Iridium also Stephen Clark in his tweet mentioned about BulgariaSat in June. I think SFN will be updated bit later.

Yes, BulgariaSat is confirmed for mid-June, on a reused booster. After that, the timeframe for launching Intelsat 35e, Iridium 11–20 and SES-11 all in June is indeed unrealistic, but we should really wait for a non-forum source to move launches in this article. At List of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches the issue was resolved by adding a {{needs update}} tag after the reference to an outdated piece of information. — JFG ^talk 13:11, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Intelsat 35e

Is now scheduled for late June. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#Future_launches — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.63.169.76 (talk) 07:41, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Moved it up, thanks. --mfb (talk) 13:35, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Electron

@SkywalkerPL: why you count electron as New Zealand launch? If count by spaceport needs count Soyuz from Kourou as Europe or as Guiana but not Russia. I count Electron as the USA because Rocket Lab is US company, but have the FIRST spaceport in New Zealand, and have plans for use two spaceports in the USA.

See rationale below. Also please, remember to sign your comments. SkywalkerPL (talk) 08:02, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Electron rationale

I see that there's been already an edit with incorrect data, so let me give you a rationale for Electron:

• It counts as an New Zealand rocket due to the fact that its main body was manufactured in NZ (https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2017/03/21/rocket-lab-becomes-a-space-unicorn-with-a-75-million-funding-round) and well, Electron (rocket) article counts NZ as the country of origin, so I'd recommend having disputes about country of origin of the rocket on Talk:Electron (rocket). (edit: additional source "Rocket Lab’s main engineering, design and mission control center is in Auckland, New Zealand")
  • Therefore in Orbital launch summary it will count as a NZ
• Rocket Lab will have a United States flag due to the fact that it's HQ is based in California.
• By spaceport list will have Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on a list as Mahia to keep the convention going.

SkywalkerPL (talk) 07:57, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Can we give NZ a different color in the country summary chart, however? Currently it is nearly identical with Europe. DarkGreen __? --mfb (talk) 19:24, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Electron Rocket vs. Engines

I agree, Electron is designed and manufactured in NZ, so the rocket should be listed under NZ. The engines are manufactured in the US, but the convention on this page is that flags are assigned by country of rocket origin, not engine origin. For example, Atlas 5 uses Russian-built RD-180 engines, but it's listed as a US launch vehicle because ULA builds the rocket in the US. 192.55.54.38 (talk) 16:41, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

QZSS orbits

@Fukumuto: With this edit you said that QZS-3 is geostationary but you listed it as geosynchronous, which is not exactly the same. In fact, the Tundra orbits (called "quasi-zenith" for this project) are a special type of geosynchronous orbit. Do you have a source stating that QZS-3 uses a different orbit than the Tundra? As you apparently have access to recent Japanese sources, could you also perhaps update the QZSS article which mentions only three satellites whereas we know there is a QZS-4 planned for late 2017 or early 2018? — JFG ^talk 17:56, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

PS: I think it's entirely realistic for QZSS to deploy three satellites in a Tundra orbit and a fourth one in GEO, just like BeiDou uses a mix of geostationary, MEO and IGSO orbits to optimize coverage; however we need sources explaining that. — JFG ^talk 18:00, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

(I wasn't aware of this message till I see this page. Somehow your ping template did not work?) It looked like all other entries use "geosynchronous" to mean "geostationary". Please correct if my assumption was wrong. QZSS constellation comprises three quazi-zenith orbit (QZO) satellites and one geostationary orbit (GEO) satellite.[1] JAXA press release says Michibiki-3 is geostationary.

• http://global.jaxa.jp/press/2017/06/20170615_h2af35.html
• http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2017/06/files/20170615_h2af35_j.pdf (in Japanese)

--Fukumoto (talk) 04:44, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

The username inserted in the ping template is written wrong. --Rikifire (talk) 07:52, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks for the sources, Fukumoto. Yes, sorry I made a typo on your name the first time. — JFG ^talk 18:22, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

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This reported SFN as a false positive again. This site ain't dead, and it's annoying to fix things back repeatedly in many articles where it is cited, when the bot decides it may be dead. Please can somebody put http://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/ on a whitelist? — JFG ^talk 23:09, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Bug report? --mfb (talk) 23:59, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mfb: Sorry, I just noticed your question now. I have reported false positives for this particular source earlier, but I can't find a log of such reports in the IABot console. On the other hand, if I enter this page today, the bot tells me it is either live or whitelisted, which sounds great. Is the whitelist visible somewhere? — JFG ^talk 05:39, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

No idea, I didn't look into the issue. --mfb (talk) 11:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Landings?

I understand the goal is to list the number of Falcon 9 (and ultimately New Glenn) landings, but I worry that the way its phrased is misleading. The first stage of Falcon 9 doesn't go into orbit, while other things that land but aren't included in the definition you're using like the X-37B go to orbit and then land. I don't think the use of the term "landing" is clear enough in the infobox, and I think it would be best if it were modified or, barring a consensus forming, removed. Astrofreak92 (talk) 13:49, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

I was thinking that maybe is better to replace it with "Recovered boosters" --Rikifire (talk) 13:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

@Astrofreak92: Good point: I would be in favor of adding the X-37B landings to the infobox count. No need to corner ourselves to Falcon boosters (and later New Glenn). — JFG ^talk 16:04, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Would we then also need to add things like Soyuz and Dragon landings? Since Falcon 9 S1's are technically suborbital, would landings of New Shepard also be included? I just want to flesh out what exactly this category covers so that updating the number is an uncontroversial process. Astrofreak92 (talk) 19:01, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

New Shepard twice (booster+spacecraft)? F9 payload fairings? This is quickly getting complicated, and nothing you can summarize in 1 or 2 words in the infobox. What about the alternative category "reused boosters" or "reused spacecraft"? --mfb (talk) 00:13, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Another good question. There's little in common between a Soyuz capsule, a Space Shuttle, a Falcon 9 first stage and a New Shepard, except for the fact they all cross the Kármán line and they all land non-destructively. So what do we want to include in the "Landings" field, and do we want such a field? I only added it to the infobox because 2017 in spaceflight had a "landings" parameter which was not displayed. I suppose this had been added as a reaction to the well-publicized Falcon 9 first-stage landings. So, let me suggest a criterion for inclusion in this "landings" field:

The landings parameter documents the count of spacefaring vehicles which have:

• crossed the Kármán line by their own means of propulsion
• re-entered Earth atmosphere and landed non-destructively

Those criteria are unambiguous, hence easy to assess and verify. They would include almost all Shuttle missions, the recovered Falcon 9 boosters and some of the New Shepard test flights. They would exclude the Soyuz, Apollo, Dragon or other capsules, as well as the X-37B. What do my fellow spacefaring editors think? — JFG ^talk 00:19, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Why do the Shuttle orbiters pass the first criterion? They needed the boosters (providing 80% of the initial thrust) and the big fuel tanks. --mfb (talk) 00:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough, but by your own figures, the reusable orbiter did contribute 20% to reaching space; the Boeing spaceplane contributes zero, being fully propelled by its carrier rocket like any satellite. — JFG ^talk 03:43, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

It contributes - a little bit. Without the boosters the Orbiters couldn't even lift off. Dragon contributes even less, but it does orbit circularization and increases apogee and perigee later. --mfb (talk) 21:18, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Right. Dragon does not contribute to reaching space, though (as defined in the Year in spaceflight articles by crossing the Kármán line). Can we assess whether the Shuttle boosters alone would bring the Orbiter to space without the contribution of the SSMEs? Our Shuttle page says that boosters burned for 124 seconds while SSMEs fired for 480 seconds. What would be the maximum altitude reached by a fully-loaded Shuttle without firing its main engines? I very much doubt that it would reach the 100-km mark but don't have a Kerbal simulator handy. Better yet if we could find sources explaining that.

Meanwhile, I can suggest the following amendmend to the inclusion criteria for "landings" parameter:

The landings parameter documents the count of spacefaring vehicles which have:

• crossed the Kármán line, at least partly by their own means of propulsion
• re-entered Earth atmosphere and landed non-destructively

This would include the Shuttle orbiter, Falcon 9 first stages and New Shepard boosters. Looking at other past or present vehicles, we would have the X-15 with flight 90 and 91 in 1963, and flights 15P to 17P of Spaceship One in 2004, both vehicles launch-assisted but crossing the line on their own power. I don't see anything else, do you? — JFG ^talk 10:44, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

This new definition should be unambiguous, but I'm not sure how useful it is as category.

The Space Shuttle boosters didn't make it into space after dropping off (~60 km peak height if I remember correctly), if the orbiter didn't fire its engines it should have followed roughly the same trajectory - and stayed even lower if the engine was not used while the SRBs were active. --mfb (talk) 10:50, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

@Mfb: Thanks for the information about the peak altitude of Shuttle boosters; we can then confidently include the Space Shuttle orbiters into the "landed safely after reaching space under their own power" category. Now you ask whether that's a useful grouping. Several sources discuss a number of those vehicles when chronicling spacecraft landing attempts; they usually make a distinction between orbital and suborbital flights. Noting that no SSTO vehicle was ever successfully developed, we can only expect a stage or the other to land back: first stage of the Falcon 9 and New Glenn, while the Shuttle orbiter can be considered a second-stage vehicle, similar to the future ITS spacecraft. I am of two minds about this, and I believe it's an editorial choice. We could decide to use these criteria (option A) or to restrict the scope to vehicles that were part of an orbital spaceflight attempt (option B). Option A would include suborbital vehicles such as the X-15, Spaceship One and New Shepard. Option B would cover only the Space Shuttle and the Falcon 9 boosters today, and it would add New Glenn when that one starts flying. Either way, we must explain the criteria properly. — JFG ^talk 19:05, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

I think Option B satisfies a notability criteria. Many sounding rocket stages are reusable and use parachutes for recovery, but it is almost never reported whether recovery is successful because they're small and cheap. The number would be invariably incomplete because not all sounding rocket launches are reported consistently and very few recoveries are noted. New Shepard is much larger and its recovery is notable, but it isn't in a fundamentally different category from a Terrier-Improved Malemute or Black Brant or whatever other suborbital system. Astrofreak92 (talk) 19:34, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

"Things that reach space, but not necessarily orbit, at least partially with their own means of propulsion before they reach space, and then landed again, while some components, not necessarily the thing that landed, were at least planned to reach orbit during the launch". Seriously? What about "soft landings of spacecraft/rocket stages that were in orbit"? That includes Dragon, Soyuz, Shenzhou, Space Shuttle orbiters, potentially the second stage of F9 and New Glenn in the future, but not any existing rocket stages. Separately we can count reuses of spacecraft and rocket stages involved in orbital spaceflight. --mfb (talk) 20:06, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Things that reach space, but… Seen this way, it sounds weird, however from the angle of notability, I believe that the Falcon 9 boosters and Shuttle orbiters are in a class of their own, as the only rocket-powered orbital-class spacecraft that were designed to be reusable and indeed helped carry several payloads to orbit. Perhaps we can formulate the criteria in a simpler way? In my previous comment I wrote "landed safely after reaching space under their own power", that's concise enough but we need the more precise bullet points to clarify edge cases. Alternately we could center the criteria around reusability, e.g. "safe landing of a reusable rocket-powered spacecraft". I am firmly against using this parameter for space capsules though: they are just payloads. — JFG ^talk 21:00, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

The capsules have their own thrusters, just smaller. See my proposal to list actual reuses. --mfb (talk) 10:00, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, like every satellite has attitude control thrusters and an apogee motor. Seems we can't reach consensus on what to include; better remove the parameter entirely. Counting reuses would be interesting, but I'm afraid it would open another can of worms (how much of a refurbishment is considered reuse of the same spacecraft?). This becomes counter-productive even for readers. — JFG ^talk 12:33, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

XCOR Aerospace

As reported by the company, "Due to adverse financial conditions, XCOR had to terminate all employees as of 30 June 2017". But the company also said: "The company isn't dead. There's a core group of people working every day. The board is active and investors are committed.". Do we have to remove Lynx from Suborbital launches? --Rikifire (talk) 14:10, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

If it's removed from the source material, yes. If not, it can stay until/unless it is. Astrofreak92 (talk) 14:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

SLC-46 does not link to an article

I changed SLC-46 to SLC-46 so that it would link to the correct article but that change was reversed by JFG. Why?

user:mnw2000 13:17, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I think the assumption was that it linked to a redirect. I'll create the redirect, but your change was probably correct. Astrofreak92 (talk) 13:41, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

@Mnw2000: My bad; I didn't check that the redirect existed. Thanks Astrofreak92. — JFG ^talk 17:12, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

CubeSat Payloads

We've always included CubeSats carried inside Dragon, Cygnus, Progress, and HTV spacecraft before, why are we removing them in this instance? ISS modules have also been included in prior entries, though I can understand if CREAM does not qualify as a module. --Astrofreak92 (talk) 18:01, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Apparently our listings are inconsistent. Cubesats launched from Cygnus were always included. Cubesats carried on board a cargo spacecraft and launched later from the ISS were sometimes included, sometimes omitted. Instruments carried in the Dragon trunk were sometimes listed as a separate payload, sometimes just mentioned in comments. I'm not aware of any cubesats carried by Progress. We should set up a rule and revisit prior years to apply it consistently. My hunch would be to only list payloads effectively launched during the flight. — JFG ^talk 18:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

In the years that I've been involved with editing these, I've included CubeSats that were stored inside Cygnus and Dragon and were deployed weeks later. Any omissions were the result of incomplete or hard-to-find sources. Going back and filling the rest in as we find them is fine, and I'd prefer that to deleting the entries. Astrofreak92 (talk) 00:25, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm unsure which rule we should follow. Sure it's nice to have a comprehensive list of deployed satellites, but it's misleading to list items shipped to the ISS inside a cargo vehicle as separate payloads on a particular spaceflight. COSPAR IDs for ISS-deployed cubesats are assigned in the ISS series, 1998-067XY, whereas those launched during a flight are assigned to the relevant launch, e.g. 2016-040B to 2016-040W for cubesats launched with Cartosat-2C. Perhaps we need a footnote or a different background color to distinguish them? If we decide to list all cubesats as separate entries, then it would be unfair to not list trunk-carried scientific payloads which are generally more elaborate… but those things are not autonomous satellites. A suggestion: just list cubesats in the remarks field, with links for those that have articles. — JFG ^talk 06:37, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

It's not misleading if the remarks section notes that they were deployed from the ISS. I literally don't see an issue here. Astrofreak92 (talk) 13:41, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, it's a valid idea to list the CubeSats inside the space of the cargo vehicle, with a different colour. --Rikifire (talk) 15:43, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

That can surely be done by adding a parameter to {{TLS-PL}}, but then we need to explain the color code somewhere. Ideas? I'll work on the template if there is consensus. — JFG ^talk 22:25, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

That's a fine solution. Astrofreak92 (talk) 01:18, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

 Done @Astrofreak92: It's been a long time, but I finally got around to implementing this: CubeSats can now be displayed in a smaller font and with a slightly lighter background color. Currently active on 2018 in spaceflight only. It's easy to apply the CubeSat formatting by just adding |cubesat=yes to the {{TLS-PL}} payload declaration. We can always tweak the colors if needed. Let me know what you think. — JFG ^talk 17:02, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Did Russia launch a UR-100 Universal Rocket in 2017?

It's listed in Orbital launch statistics but I cannot find a reference to it in the article above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.238.52.134 (talk) 12:12, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

It was the Rokot / Briz-KM with Sentinel-5P on 13 October --Rikifire (talk) 18:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Telesat Flag icon

The Telesat launch in November shows a United States flag for the satellite flag icon. Telesat is a Canadian company, so I am wondering if that is a mistake, or is it being launched by an American subcontractor perhaps? Anyone have any idea? Andrewpullin (talk) 01:54, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Probably just an error while copy-pasting templates. Astrofreak92 (talk) 04:08, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Blue colors in "by country" chart

Currently Europe and the US have nearly the same color, and the difference between Europe and New Zealand is small as well. In previous articles and here in the past Europe had the color NZ has now, that has some reasonable contrast. I suggest to give NZ a new color and to restore the original color for Europe. The National colours of New Zealand include black, that would fit. Blue is not a national color of NZ.--mfb (talk) 08:30, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Great idea.  Done — JFG ^talk 10:28, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Remove the commented lines

Can we delete the commented lines like unused rockets or spaceports after the end of the year? --Rikifire (talk) 22:48, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Sure, although it doesn't make a difference. "Notes" can go unless a note is added, that makes a visible difference. --mfb (talk) 01:59, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Zenit/Dnepr now categorized as Ukr?

When did we decide to split UKR out of the Russian statistics for Zenit and Dnepr? According to our guidelines for the "By country" section in the working group: "Note that former Soviet republics (eg. Ukraine) should be listed as "Russia/CIS"." Could someone point me to the discussion where the decision to split was made and why the 2011 is the cutoff for making this change? --IanOsgood (talk) 19:17, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Simorgh (rocket)

Comment copied from User Talk:JFG, as this article talk page is a more appropriate venue. — JFG ^talk 06:41, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• Hello. The sources say it was orbital launch (but not sub-orbital) on 27 July 2017, so the changes to 2017 in spaceflight are needed. See [2]: The first orbital attempt was launched in July 2017, but failed. Video: [3]: Iranian official sources state that the rocket has reached orbit. 91.124.117.29 (talk) 02:49, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, Gunter's Space page says the launch intended to reach orbit, so that we should probably list this as a failed orbital launch. If Iranian sources do claim that the rocket has reached orbit (got a link to such sources?), they are probably misleading their audience, because no object has been tracked orbiting following this launch. The previous catalogued orbital payload was Kanopus-V-IK on July 14 as COSPAR 2017-042A, and the next one was Soyuz MS-05 as 2017-043A on July 28. Do we have other sources that covered this event? — JFG ^talk 06:41, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

MissileThreat and FoxNews: The Simorgh was launched again on July 27, 2017 from the Imam Khomeini Space Center in Semnan in north-central Iran. According to one media source, the Simorgh experienced a "catastrophic failure," likely exploding before it reached space. Reacting to the test, U.S. Strategic Command only confirmed that no satellite deployed from the rocket. So, list this event as a failed orbital launch, please. Some other links: [4] [5] [6] [7] 91.124.117.29 (talk) 21:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• I have added the information about Simorgh (rocket) to July 2017 orbital launches. Check please if all statistics updates are correct. 91.124.117.29 (talk) 21:33, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for this update. I will remove repeated world totals in the stats section, though. — JFG ^talk 22:22, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

• Check the sums by orbit one more time please (last table), especially with failures. I think something wrong. 91.124.117.29 (talk) 03:23, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I have corrected it. There was a satellite which was initially deemed lost in LEO (accidentally achieved), but later raised its apogee by its own propulsion, so it eventually achieved GEO. Now we have the 91 launches: 85 successes + 6 failures (target orbits not achieved), and the 86 catalogued orbits: 85 ok + 1 accidental (IRNSS-1H stuck in MEO). Yay, teamwork! — JFG ^talk 17:52, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Extra graphs

I have found some interesting graphics from unknown author, confirming 91 launches in year, not 90. [8] [9] [10] Could we build such graphs? 91.124.117.29 (talk) 03:18, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we could create similar graphs. I think the most informative one would be "by rocket". Let me give it a try. — JFG ^talk 06:58, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Take a look. I think the result is pretty neat. — JFG ^talk 10:36, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

I have now added the bar charts for years 2012–2017. Enjoy! — JFG ^talk 11:51, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Very good work! Excellent! My best respects for high speed :-) 91.124.117.29 (talk) 15:58, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• Maybe collapse all subsections by rocket to focus on graphs here? 91.124.117.29 (talk) 16:32, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

I think that's fine; some people will prefer to read the tables immediately; only the one by rocket variant is collapsed by default because it's very long. — JFG ^talk 17:11, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

• Maybe dewikify the "group names" (take your mouse point on a picture to see the "hints" with "unclickable" wikilinks)? 91.124.117.29 (talk) 16:37, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

That's a bug in the graph code. If we remove the links here, they also disappear in the legends. Not a big deal. — JFG ^talk 17:11, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

It's clear. 91.124.117.29 (talk) 17:37, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

A very belated from me. This is an excellent improvement to the timeline of spaceflight articles! IanOsgood (talk) 20:28, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• 2017 in spaceflight.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2019 (UTC)