User talk:XFalcon2004x

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Welcome to The Wikipedia Adventure!

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Hi XFalcon2004x! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

-- 20:26, Saturday, November 28, 2020 (UTC)

Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7
Say Hello to the World An Invitation to Earth Small Changes, Big Impact The Neutral Point of View The Veil of Verifiability The Civility Code Looking Good Together

Welcome!

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Welcome!

Hello, XFalcon2004x, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, please see our help pages, and if you can't find what you are looking for there, please feel free to ask me on my talk page or place {{Help me}} on this page and someone will drop by to help. Again, welcome! Rosbif73 (talk) 13:45, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to Project Spaceflight!

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The SPFLT Achievement Patch
For your contributions to Project Spaceflight. Neopeius (talk) 17:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Welcome aboard! I hope I can entice you to join our team working on spaceflight in the 60s. :) --Neopeius (talk) 17:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 12 December 2024

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New arbs to be seated in January.
Will the fifth try at achieving peace be a mudfight, or something better?
Should old acquaintance be forgot?
An editor's reflection on social capital and their changing relationship with Wikipedia culture.
by Tamzin
Wikipedia aims to represent the sum of all knowledge. Is there an imbalance between Western countries and the rest of the world.
Ballooning British bias bombast!
Fighting and killing – on screen, in politics, and in the ring – competes for attention with Disney.
The importance of feedback.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 December 2024

[edit]
What the VLOP – findings of an outside auditor for "responsibilization" of Wikipedia. Plus, new EU Commissioners for tech policy, WLE 2024 winners, and a few other bits of news from the Wikipedia world.
A personal essay.
Explanations for what led to it and what it was like to undergo it.
Plus, the dangers of editing, Morrissey's page gets marred, COVID coverage critique, Kimchi consultation, kids' connectivity curtailed, centenarian Claudia, Christmas cramming, and more.
Who's news?
And other new research findings.
Good faith edits REVERTED and accounts BLOCKED.
Peace on earth, goodwill to all!
Wicked war, martial law, killing, death and an Indian movie with a new chess champ!
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:03, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 15 January 2025

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The 20th anniversary of The Signpost.
A lot of psephology!
HUMINT or humbug?
Hallelujah!
Johnny Au has edited for 17 years straight without missing a day.
Some thoughts from the original editor-in-chief.
Public Domain Day 2025, Women in Red hits 20% biography milestone, Spanish Wikipedia reaches two million articles, and other news from the Wikimedia world.
The Signpost staff on achievements of '24 and hopes for '25.
The latest crusade?
Our alumni speak!
Applying the scientific method to a model of conflict that leads to arbitration.
This post fact-checked by real Wikipedian patriots.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:56, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]

Hello! This is an announcement that The Downlink has been revived. Rather than simply start again, I have chosen to create two special issues recapping the past three years. The first special issue spans November 2021 to December 2023, while the second special issue spans January 2024 to December 2024.

Due to the size of these pages, as well as the fact that they are non-standard issues, I have instead had this notice sent out. The following issues of volume 3 (Jan - Dec 2025) should be significantly smaller.

Please be aware that, for a variety of reasons, the issues that I create may be published late.

Here are the issues:

Ships & Space(Edits) 02:37, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at the talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the mailing list.

The Signpost: 7 February 2025

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But an open language model is ready to help.
The WMF executive team delivers a new update; plus, the latest EU policy report, good-bye to the German Wikipedia's Café, and other news from the Wikimedia world.
Editor Fathoms Below reminisces over their successful RfA from February 2024.
Plus, reports on the ARBPIA5 case, new concerns over projects targeting Wikipedia editors, John Green gets his sponsor flowers, and other news.
Wikimedians and newbies celebrate 24 years of Wikipedia in the Brooklyn Central Library. Special guests Stephen Harrison and Clay Shirky joined in conversation.
Ending with some bans, and a new set of editing sanctions.
The start of the year was filled with a few unfortunate losses, tragic disasters, emerging tech forces and A LOT of politics.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * Sent manually via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:47, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]
The Downlink The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
2025
1 – 31 January
Volume 3 — Issue 1
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
Introduction to Volume 3
Initially launched in late 2010/early 2011 for a run of four months, The Downlink was unpublished for more than nine years, after which a second volume was published from October 2020 to October 2021. This second volume was very different from the first volume, both in style and structure. A December issue was planned (for some reason, the second volume became volume 1 in April 2021), but was never finished. Like with volume 2, this volume 3 was intended to come with changes, though primarily to style.
Volume 3 will not feature any significant changes to style or structure. This both provides continuity with the previous volume and allows the contributors to construct each issue relatively easily. However, following volumes may see changes to style, format, and upload schedule. As it is still very early in the year, a discussion on this is not yet necessary, but suggestions of all kinds are always welcome at the talk page.
In the News
  • Blue Ghost Mission 1 and Hakuto-R Mission 2 were launched from Kennedy Space Center on 15 January. They are planned to land in March and April, respectively.
  • On 30 January, Sunita Williams broke Peggy Whitson's record for most time spent on spacewalks by a woman, at 62 hours and 6 minutes total.
  • ISRO successfully docked two SpaDeX satellites on 16 January, making India the fourth country (including the EU) to dock two vehicles in space.
  • Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle completed its maiden flight on 16 January. The payload was successfully placed in orbit, while the first staged failed to land on the recovery ship.
Featured Content
Article of the Month
Soyuz programme
Artist's impression of the Soyuz 19 spacecraft from the Apollo–Soyuz mission

The Soyuz programme (/ˈsɔɪjuːz/ SOY-yooz, /ˈsɔː-/ SAW-; Russian: Союз [sɐˈjus], meaning "Union") is a human spaceflight programme initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. The Soyuz spacecraft was originally part of a Moon landing project intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. It was the third Soviet human spaceflight programme after the Vostok (1961–1963) and Voskhod (1964–1965) programmes.

The programme consists of the Soyuz capsule and the Soyuz rocket and is now the responsibility of Roscosmos. After the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, the Soyuz was the only way for humans to get to the International Space Station (ISS) until 30 May 2020 when Crew Dragon flew to the ISS for the first time with astronauts.

Image of the Month
Gene Cernan on the Moon

Gene Cernan was the eleventh and (as of 2025) last person to ever step foot on the moon. In addition to being an astronaut, he was an aviator in the US Navy and engineer. Apollo 17 was his second Apollo mission, as he served as Apollo 10's lunar module pilot. He died in Houston on 16 January, 2017. He was the first astronaut to be buried at Texas State Cemetery.

Members

New members:

Number of active members: 200. Total number of members: 426.

Launches
All times stated here are in UTC. For a complete list, see here: List_of_spaceflight_launches_in_January–June_2025#January.

  1. United States New Glenn — DarkSky-1 (16 Jan. at 07:03) (success)
  2. United States SpaceX Starship — 10 Starlink simulators (16 Jan. at 22:37) (launch failure)
 Article Statistics
This data reflects values from the 31 January 2025.
Spaceflight articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 7 28 14 8 57
FL 3 4 4 11
FM 123 123
A 1 2 2 5
GA 11 27 34 55 1 128
B 15 83 201 217 1 517
C 43 161 574 754 29 1,561
Start 18 146 1,022 2,558 434 4,178
Stub 9 203 2,052 243 2,507
List 10 116 108 236 1 26 497
Category 1,228 1,228
Disambig 47 47
File 223 223
Portal 55 55
Project 109 109
Redirect 1 42 131 1,238 1,412
Template 525 525
NA 5 5
Other 39 39
Assessed 105 574 2,204 6,017 3,593 734 13,227
Unassessed 19 133 152
Total 105 574 2,204 6,036 3,593 867 13,379
Monthly Changes

Since December 2024, five new high-importance, eight new mid-importance, forty new low-importance, and 1,522 new NA-importance articles have been created. Fifteen unknown-importance articles have been removed, for a total of 1,560 more articles. One article has been promoted to Good Article status. There are also three more B-class articles, eleven more C-class articles, 23 more Start-class articles, four more Stub-class articles, 4 more lists, and 34 more files.

Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the mailing list.
Newsletter contributor: Ships&Space

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 27 February 2025

[edit]
French Wikipedia defends a user against public threats, steward elections, and other news from the Wikimedia world.
"The only time I ever took photos in my entire life".
From patrolling new edits to uploading photos or joining a campaign, you can count on the Wikimedia platform to be up and running — in your language, anywhere in the world. That is, except for a couple of minutes during the equinoctes.
Or just the end of Wikipedia as we know it?
Of "hunters", "busybodies" and "dancers".
User Sennecaster shares her thoughts on her recent RfA and the aspects that might have played a role in making it successful.
What are they? Why are they important? How can we make them better? And what can you do to help?
Liberté, liberté chérie.
Grammys, politics and the Super Bowl.
Straight from the source's mouth. A source is a source, of course, of course!
Turkish linguist wrote about languages and plants; Brazilian informaticist studied Wikimedia projects and education.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:30, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]
The Downlink The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
2025
1 — 28 February
Volume 3 — Issue 2
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News
Article of the month
The Family Portrait of the Solar System taken by Voyager 1

The Family Portrait, or sometimes Portrait of the Planets, is an image of the Solar System acquired by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990, from a distance of approximately 6 billion km (40 AU; 3.7 billion mi) from Earth. It features individual frames of six planets and a partial background indicating their relative positions. The picture is a mosaic of 60 frames. The frames used to compose the image were the last photographs taken by either Voyager spacecraft (which continued to relay other telemetry afterward). The frames were also the source of the famous Pale Blue Dot image of the Earth. Astronomer Carl Sagan, who was part of the Voyager imaging team, campaigned for many years to have the pictures taken.

Image of the month
STS-98 following liftoff

Launched on 7 February 2001, STS-98 delivered to the Destiny laboratory module of the International Space Station. Flown by Atlantis, it was the first human spaceflight mission of the 21st century. The shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base on 20 February after being docked with the ISS for almost seven days. The crew consisted of Kenneth Cockrell, commander, Mark L. Polansky, pilot, Robert Curbeam, mission specialist 1, Marsha Ivins, mission specialist 2 and flight engineer, and Thomas David Jones, mission specialist 3.

Members

New Members: No new members.

Number of active members: 200. Total number of members: 426.

February Launches
All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here.

  1. Russia Soyuz 2.1v and Volga — Kosmos-2581/-2582/-2583 (5 Feb. at 03:59) (success)
  2. China Long March 8A — 9 Hulianwang Digui (11 Feb. at 09:30) (success)
  3. United States Falcon 9 Block 5 — 23 Starlink (18 Feb. at 23:21) (success)
  4. United States Falcon 9 Block 5 — multiple (27 Feb. at 00:02) (launch success)
 Article Statistics
This data reflects values from the 28 February 2025.
Spaceflight articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 7 28 14 8 57
FL 3 4 4 11
FM 123 123
A 1 3 2 6
GA 11 27 33 55 1 127
B 15 83 200 217 1 516
C 43 162 575 760 30 1,570
Start 18 146 1,022 2,565 440 4,191
Stub 9 203 2,054 244 2,510
List 10 116 108 236 1 27 498
Category 1,262 1,262
Disambig 47 47
File 223 223
Portal 55 55
Project 109 109
Redirect 1 42 131 1,238 1,412
Template 527 527
NA 3 3
Other 1 34 35
Assessed 105 575 2,204 6,033 3,622 743 13,282
Unassessed 19 136 155
Total 105 575 2,204 6,052 3,622 879 13,437
Monthly Changes

Since January 2025, one new high-importance, sixteen new low-importance, nineteen new NA-importance, and twelve new unknown-importance articles have been created, for a total of 58 new articles. One article has been demoted from Good Article status. There are also one more A-class article, one more B-class article, nine fewer C-class articles, thirteen more Start-class articles, three more Stub-class articles, and one more list.

Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space, Geni

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:59, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 22 March 2025

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It's an ecstasy, my spring.
Let them know what you think!
Read this, then forget all about it.
Life on the Wiki as usual!
And WMF invites multi-year research fund proposals
The Oscars, politics, and death elbow for the most attention.
The photographers are the celebrities!
And very unusual biographical images.
Send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:07, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 April 2025

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Fellow doctor Osama Khalid remains behind bars for "violating public morals" by editing.
Major changes to core content policy, or still-developing plan for new initiative?
Defeat, or just a setback?
Plus: 30-year anniversary of wiki software commemorated.
Our content is free, our infrastructure is not!
What is to be done?
Advice to aspirants: "Read RfA debriefs", including this one.
Rest in peace.
Snow White sinking, Adolescence soaring, spacefarers stranded, this list has it all!
The Wikimedia Foundation's announcement from Diff.
Gadzooks!
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]
The Downlink The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
2025
1 — 31 March
Volume 3 — Issue 3
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News
  • Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial company to successfully achieve a soft landing on the moon on 2 March with the landing of Blue Ghost Mission 1 near Mons Latreille. It lasted the intended length of one lunar day before losing power on 16 March. It was launched with the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander Resilience and rover Tenacious, which are planned to land in the Mare Frigoris.
  • On 6 March, the IM-2 mission's lunar lander Athena landed on Mons Mouton. Although intact, it landed sideways, preventing it from generating enough power to operate as designed. The mission was declared over the following day.
  • SpaceX Crew-9 splashed down near Tallahassee, Florida on 18 March. Initially planned to launch with a full complement, the extension of Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams' stay on the ISS resulted in it being launched with only two crew members.
Article of the month

The Phootprint mission is a candidate for the Mars Robotic Exploration Preparation Programme 2 (MREP-2) at ESA. During 2014, ESA funded a pre-phase A feasibility study and industrial system studies of 8-month duration. Currently, it is in phase A, meaning 'mission definition study.'

The mission would last about 3.5 years, including cruise, mapping orbit, 7 days on the surface, and sample return cruise time. The spacecraft would be powered by solar arrays.

In August 2015, the ESA-Roscosmos working group on post-ExoMars cooperation, completed a joint study for a possible future Phobos Sample Return mission, and preliminary discussions were held.

Image of the month
InSight lander testing

The InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander was selected from among three options in August 2012. Initially planned to launch in March 2016, an instrument issue delayed the launch to May 2018, the next Earth-Mars launch window. It was successfully launched on 5 May, and landed on Elysium Planitia on 26 November 2018. Taking seismographic and thermographic readings, InSight operated for a total of 4 years and 19 days instead of its planned 2 year mission. The mission was declared over on 21 December, 2022 after contact was lost on 15 December. A re-analysis of some of its data indicates that there may be significant amounts of groundwater in Mars' crust.

Members

New Members:

Number of active members: 206. Total number of members: 430.

March Launches
All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here.

  1. France Ariane 62 — CSO-3 (6 Mar. at 16:24 UTC) (success)
  2. United States SpaceX Starship — four Starlink simulators (6 Mar. at 23:30 UTC) (launch failure)
  3. United StatesJapan Rocket Lab Electron — QPS-SAR 9/SUSANOO-1 (15 Mar. at 00:00 UTC) (success)
  4. Germany Spectrum — no payload (30 Mar. at 10:30 UTC) (launch failure)
 Article Statistics
This data reflects values from the 28 February 2025.
Spaceflight articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 7 28 14 8 57
FL 3 4 4 11
FM 123 123
A 1 3 2 6
GA 11 27 33 55 1 127
B 15 84 199 217 1 516
C 43 161 577 764 30 1,575
Start 18 145 1,021 2,569 441 4,194
Stub 9 203 2,055 245 2,512
List 10 116 108 236 1 28 499
Category 1,263 1,263
Disambig 47 47
File 223 223
Portal 55 55
Project 109 109
Redirect 2 42 129 1,241 1,414
Template 528 528
NA 3 3
Other 28 28
Assessed 105 575 2,204 6,039 3,621 746 13,290
Unassessed 19 134 153
Total 105 575 2,204 6,058 3,621 880 13,443
Monthly Changes

Since February 2025, six new low-importance and one new unknown-importance articles have been created. One NA-importance article has been removed, for a total of six new articles. There are also five more C-class articles, three more Start-class articles, two more Stub-class articles, and one more list.

Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:04, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 1 May 2025

[edit]
As always, Wikimedia community governance relies on user participation; plus, more updates from the Wikimedia world
Scrapers, an Indian lawsuit, and a crash-or-not-crash?
And other new research findings.
And don't bite those newbies!
And don't bite those newbies!
Television dramas, televised sports, film, the Pope, and ... bioengineering at the top of the list?
Community volunteers network among themselves and use technology to counter attacks on information sharing.
A look at some product and tech highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Plan (July–December 2024).
Hey! At least it is something!
Zounds!
Would a billion articles be a good idea?
There's a lot more to this than you think.
I wonder about having crats, but decided to become one anyway.
Just beautiful photos!
Rest in Paradise.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:19, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 May 2025

[edit]
And comment is requested on a privacy whitepaper.
And other courtroom drama.
And how he knows it: all about lawyer letters and editing logs.
Why the language barrier is not the only impediment to navigating sources from another culture.
And QR codes for every page!
When an editor is ready to become staff at a public library (not a brother in a fraternity).
Rest in peace.
The technology behind it, and the other stuff.
Gadzooks!
And more.
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
[edit]
The Downlink The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
2025
1 — 30 April
Volume 3 — Issue 4
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News
  • On 1 April, Fram2 became the first crewed mission to enter into a retrograde orbit around Earth's poles.
Article of the month

The Apollo Abort Guidance System (AGS, also known as Abort Guidance Section) was a backup computer system providing an abort capability in the event of failure of the Lunar Module's primary guidance system (Apollo PGNCS) during descent, ascent or rendezvous. As an abort system, it did not support guidance for a lunar landing.

The AGS was designed by TRW independently of the development of the Apollo Guidance Computer and PGNCS.

It was the first navigation system to use a strapdown Inertial Measurement Unit rather than a gimbaled gyrostabilized IMU (as used by PGNCS). Although not as accurate as the gimbaled IMU, it provided satisfactory accuracy with the help of the optical telescope and rendezvous radar. It was also lighter and smaller in size.

Image of the month
Falcon 9 Full Thrust

Starting development in 2014, the Falcon 9 Full Thrust is a variant of the Falcon 9 that is the first orbital rocket to have a first stage successfully land vertically after launch. The stage shown here is from the April 2016 SpaceX CRS-8 mission, after landing on the autonomous spaceport drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.

Members

New Members:

Number of active members: 208. Total number of members: 433.

April Launches
All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here.

  1. United States Falcon 9 Block 5 — Fram2 (1 Apr. at 00:46 UTC) (success)
  2. China Long March 2F/G — Shenzhou 20 (24 Apr. at 09:17 UTC) (success)
  3. United States Atlas V 551 — 27 KuiperSats (28 Apr. at 23:01) (success)
  4. United States Firefly Alpha — LM-400 Demo (29 Apr. at 13:37) (launch failure)
 Article Statistics
This data reflects values from 30 April 2025.
Spaceflight articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 7 28 15 8 58
FL 3 4 4 11
FM 123 123
A 1 2 2 5
GA 11 27 33 55 1 127
B 15 84 200 221 1 521
C 45 162 581 774 31 1,593
Start 16 144 1,017 2,584 444 4,205
Stub 9 204 2,049 244 2,506
List 10 120 108 236 1 30 505
Category 1,264 1,264
Disambig 47 47
File 223 223
Portal 55 55
Project 109 109
Redirect 2 42 131 1,243 1,418
Template 528 528
NA 1 1
Other 29 29
Assessed 105 579 2,206 6,064 3,623 751 13,328
Unassessed 14 125 139
Total 105 579 2,206 6,078 3,623 876 13,467
Monthly Changes

Since March 2025, four new high-importance, two new mid-importance, twenty new low-importance, and two new NA-importance articles have been created. Four unknown-importance articles have been removed, for a total of 24 new articles. One article has been promoted to Featured Article status. There are also five more B-class articles, eighteen more C-class articles, eleven more Start-class articles, six fewer Stub-class articles, and six more lists.

Special thanks to Neopeius for significantly working on some of the Timeline of spaceflight articles (specifically 1953, 54, 55, and most recently 56). Thanks also to Sotakarhu for table work in the latter.

Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:26, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]
The Downlink The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
2025
1 — 31 May
Volume 3 — Issue 5
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News
Article of the month
Artist's impression of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft

2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. The data Odyssey obtains is intended to help answer the question of whether life once existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Curiosity rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and Phoenix lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and reached Mars orbit on October 24, 2001, at 02:30 UTC (October 23, 19:30 PDT, 22:30 EDT). As of March 2025, it is still collecting data, and is estimated to have enough propellant to function until the end of 2025. It currently holds the record for the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth, ahead of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (served 14 years) and the Mars Express (serving over 20 years), at 23 years, 8 months and 28 days. As of October 2019 it is in a polar orbit around Mars with a semi-major axis of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles.

Image of the month
International Space Station after LF1

Starting with Zarya in November 1998, the assembly of the International Space Station continued on a regular basis until the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, which resulted in a nearly three-year pause from November 2002 to July 2005. This image shows the ISS following the installation of the second External stowage platform. ESP-2 was launched on 26 July 2005 on board Discovery as part of STS-114.

Members

New Members:

Number of active members: 209. Total number of members: 434.

May Launches
All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here.

  1. United States Starship — 8 Starlink Simulators (27 May at 23:36:28 UTC) (partial failure)
  2. China Long March 4B — Tianwen-2 (28 May at 04:00 UTC) (success)
 Article Statistics
This data reflects values from 30 May 2025.
Spaceflight articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 7 28 15 8 58
FL 3 4 4 11
FM 123 123
A 1 2 2 5
GA 11 27 33 55 1 127
B 15 84 200 220 1 520
C 45 163 583 784 32 1,607
Start 16 143 1,017 2,591 444 4,211
Stub 9 205 2,043 245 2,502
List 10 120 108 236 1 33 508
Category 1,266 1,266
Disambig 46 46
File 223 223
Portal 55 55
Project 109 109
Redirect 2 42 132 1,244 1,420
Template 527 527
NA 1 1
Other 28 28
Assessed 105 579 2,209 6,075 3,623 756 13,347
Unassessed 12 123 135
Total 105 579 2,209 6,087 3,623 879 13,482
Monthly Changes

Since April 2025, three new mid-importance, nine new low-importance, and three new unknown-importance articles have been created, for a total of 15 new articles. There is also one less B-class article, 14 more C-class articles, six more Start-class articles, four less Stub-class articles, and three more lists.

Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:50, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 24 June 2025

[edit]
Admins arrested in Belarus.
Pardon our alliteration!
A get-out-of-jail card!
And other new research publications.
Holy men and not-as-holy movies.
Get your self-nomination in by July 2nd!
After two years RuWiki fails to thrive.
With some sweet-and-sour sauce!
Every thing you need to know about the Wikimedia Foundation?
Egad!
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The Signpost: 18 July 2025

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Endowment tax form, Wikimania, elections, U4C, fundraising and a duck!
And how do we know?
Five-year journey comes to healthy fruition.
Wikimedians from around the world will gather in person and online at the twentieth annual meeting of Wikimania.
As well as "hermeneutic excursions" and other scientific research findings.
The report covers the Foundation's operations from July 2023 - June 2024
A step towards objective and comprehensive coverage of a project nearly too big to follow.
Drawn this century!
How data from the Wikipedia "necessary articles" lists can shed new light on the gender gap
Annual plans, external trends, infrastructure, equity, safety, and effectiveness. What does it all mean?
Rest in peace.
Wouldn't it be nice without billionaires, scandals, deaths, and wars?
If you are too blasé for Mr. Blasé and don't give a FAC.
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