Talk:SpaceX reusable launch system development program/Archive 1

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"F9R (pronounced F-niner)" --Craigboy (talk) 23:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"I think we're a year away from being able to recover stages, then we'll take a look at them and extrapolate how many missions each stage can undergo. I hope to be reflying them a year after that. Rapid reusability, maybe another year. So in total, two to three years from now." - Gwynne Shotwell (June 2013)--Craigboy (talk) 04:19, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Essentially the v.1.1 and F 9-R are the same vehicle, although the upgraded F9 will not fly with the key reusable hardware – such as landing legs – until a later date."--Craigboy (talk) 05:39, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article improvement, with a purpose

With the recent progress in the development and test of this RLV technology, and the publically-announced plan that SpaceX is going to try for a test-flight return-and-vertical-landing of a Falcon 9 v1.1 booster stage, on Terra firma—while the second stage and payload continue on an operational orbital trajectory—as soon as February 2014, it is probably time to ramp up the effort on improving this article.

To that end, I intend to invite some serious copy-editing from a non-technical copy-editor from the Guild of Copy Editors, and perhaps from a technical (but non-space biased) copy-editor as well. Then I propose to ask a non-involved editor from WikiProject Spaceflight to evaluate the article against that project's B-class article quality criteria. Assuming it makes it through those reviews and interest remains, I believe it might be useful to strive to get the article to Good article status by the time of that first booster return test flight in early 2014. Rationale: if successful, that test flight will be an achievement in the History of technology, and will likely be of interest to a larger group of Wikipedia readers around the time of that flight.

I would very much welcome any other editors who might choose to pitch in and help. Cheers. N2e (talk) 21:19, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

B-class article review

  • A request for for a B-class article review was made on 24 November 2013 by N2e.
  • User:WDGraham did the review on 25 November 2013; see below.
  •  Done—assessed as B-class on 9 Dec 2013 by WDGrham. N2e (talk) 17:37, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Photo/image improvement

The article currently has only a single lonely photo, one of Steve Jurvetson's Flickr-stream photos of the early-Grasshopper v1.0 tank sitting on the test pad in a field in Texas: the photo is a very early shot, and was taken while the Grasshopper was not even yet completed. Moreover, the Grasshopper v1.0 is now retired, and the really important part of the eight GHv1.0 flights to date is the landing, not the mere sitting on a pad, nor the ascent or even rocket hover. It is that descent and landing aspect that has made each of the GH videos go viral on YouTube, and get wide coverage by the Space industry media, and what is the critical technology being developed by SpaceX to pull off the "rapid and full reusability" objective.

More importantly, the SpaceX reusable rocket launching system technology is so very much more than just Grasshopper, and really needs a few photos to illustrate different aspects of the technology development effort.

In order to get to good article status, any candidate article needs the images/photos to be brought up to a certain standard. I am not a photo/image savvy Wikipedia editor, and I am assuming that we will need to find one to help bring this article up to GA status by the end of January 2014.

SpaceX and media sites have released a LOT of photos of this technology, both Grasshopper and new F9-R landing legs, a couple of shots of the first booster return test flight in late-Sep 2013, etc. Anyone want to help, and figure out what we can do under what licensing authority to radically improve the photo game of this article N2e (talk) 05:19, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I asked User:Huntster, whose wiki-image fu is strong, to take a look at the photo-related questions here. This is his response (originally published on his Talk page):
N2e, I'm always willing to help with images, where possible. The issue is that SpaceX is a private company and their Grasshopper testing has been done in-house, without NASA photogs present :D I've scoured available resources for free images of Grasshopper, and what's on Commons is what's available. F9-R is even more problematic since it is such a new program. To be honest, it is highly unlikely that any free images of the new landing system will be available until it actually comes into use, and it is entirely possible images won't be available even then. This is just a note about the realities of the situation, and I'll continue checking to see if resources come available. I'll also try reaching out to SpaceX public affairs to see if they would be willing to release something under a free license (they've done so in the past, but only for early F1 material, iirc). — Huntster (t @ c) 06:47, 24 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just a suggestion for images, there might be some scope to put a Falcon 9 image in either the background and/or testing sections. --W. D. Graham 12:28, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Done — I took your suggestion and added an in-flight photo of the Falcon 9 Flight 6 launch vehicle, just minutes before it did the first-ever retro-deceleration and controlled-descent flight test. So while we don't have any Wiki-license friendly pics of the test we can use, we can show the same rocket on the same day shortly before that flight test was run.
Also added a contextual diagram of the Falcon rockets, so we could say to which two of them (F9 v1.1 and Falcon Heavy) the reusable technology is being developed for.
If anyone has an idea for how another good-license image might be used, please leave that suggestion here. N2e (talk) 17:56, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Serious copyedit

With the B-class review and image search behind us... Next: plan to invite a serious copyedit from a non-technical copy-editor from the Guild of Copy Editors, and perhaps also from a technical (but non-space-biased) copy-editor as well. N2e (talk) 17:37, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 In progress—A request has been made to the Guild of Copy Editors. Full request is here. N2e (talk) 03:52, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 Done—by Baffle gab1978 (talk) 23:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

B class review

I have reviewed the article against the B-class criteria, and have found that it is very close to meeting the requirements, however there are a few minor issues which I think should be resolved before B-class status is conferred.

  • Referencing: Two very minor issues; reference #5 is currently a raw URL and needs to be formatted, and whether #39 is a reliable source is questionable - indeed another user has tagged it as such.
  • Grammar/Style: Again, very minor. I noticed at least one point in the article where figures are given in non-SI values before SI values (speeds in the lead given in Mach) Kilometres per second would probably be the best SI unit to use here. I would also recommend changing all British spellings in the article to American ones.
  • (partially done) the non-US_English spellings were the result of the default output of the {{convert}} template; fixed by Chris the speller who was invited to come over here and have a look. The Mach/miles per hour/km per hour issue seems to be the result of the default output of the {convert|Mach} template; I have endeavored to fix it with the usual "<code>|disp=flip</code>" parm; but it seems to be broken and does not work as it normally does with the standard convert template. The velocities in the source document were given in terms of Mach number, and not either km/h or mph. N2e (talk) 03:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of editors have come along and made some changes to the Mach numbers and conversion template. The first (User:Glmory)cleaned up some odd errors from the convert/Mach use (errors I had not previously seen in the article), and another editor (IP 130.216.218.47 ) came along and used a somewhat different template, {{convert/q}}, to get the (previously broken) mph and km/h conversions added back to the article. This seemed to fix the errors, and keep conversions of the Mach numbers—which were the way the velocities are given in the source—to both km/h and mph.
However, the Mach numbers are still listed first, which is contrary to what the B-class reviewer (User:WDGraham) suggested: that the SI units (km/h) go first, ahead of the Mach no. and mph numbers. I have asked for some help on changing the order. N2e (talk) 23:50, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If we drop the mph unit entirely, then the desired result is possible from the conversion templates: 1.8 kilometers per second (Mach 6). Keeping the mph output does not seem to work with this approach, unless the template itself is edited to put the metric unit before the customary unit in the default output. (At least, I can't figure out how to get the template to spit out two non-default conversions from one input!) The conversion template is in the middle of a massive re-write, and {{convert/q}} is one of the gateways to the new version. (However, on further research {{convert/sandboxlua}} might be more appropriate.) 130.216.218.47 (talk) 05:57, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest retaining mph since it is probably of use to American readers - my suggestion would be x.x km/s (Mach y, zzzzzz mph). If the template doesn't currently support it, using static text could be an option. --W. D. Graham 12:26, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explicit guidance, WDGraham. I've done a little experimenting with {{convert/q}} in my sandbox, and will try to get back to this article soon to fix it in the way you suggest: probably with a combination of {{convert/q}} template conversion plus a "static text" option to get the mph handled too, since the template doesn't seem able to handle both km/s and mph along with the Mach no. N2e (talk) 18:15, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone ahead and changed these Mach numbers to plain text. While I love the Convert template, it cannot handle all situations, and it's better to be completely plain text rather than a mix of template and plain text. — Huntster (t @ c) 20:32, 5 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that works for me. The convert template is amazing, but it's not all things to all people. What did you think about WDG's suggestion of using km/s for the first SI velocity, then mph and Mach for the conversions? N2e (talk) 01:21, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly disagree. I don't believe 1.8 km/s would be nearly as meaningful to readers as 6546 km/h. While "per second" is the official SI form, "per hour" is for use by BIPM. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:51, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Two thoughts. 1) On the km/s vs. km/h, it appears that you (Huntster) and WDGraham have different views. I don't believe that needs to be resolved here as part of the B-Class review, so I'll stay agnostic on that, for now, and perhaps we'll discuss it further later on. 2) on the Mach conversions, I found one more use of the convert|Mach template in the article that was rendering badly; so I have replaced it with the identical manual conversion numbers you put in the lede. N2e (talk) 01:17, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
km/h first is better than Mach first, and I think that is sufficient for the B-class review. Moving forward, would it be possible to adopt a similar compromise to the one reached at International Space Station, with km/s first but kph given as an alternative unit, or would that just result in there being too many different conversions? --W. D. Graham 14:37, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Done—for purposes of this B-Class review, I believe that now both issues related to Mach nos.—the non-US spellings and the conversions for Mach nos., leading with SI units—are complete. N2e (talk) 01:17, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article could benefit from one or two more images, and ideally one in the top right corner of the page.
Two additional images have been added to the article since the initial B-Class review was conducted last month. Neither is particularly representative of the entire technology program, but they do illustrate in part a single aspect of the technolgy program. The best images have not been released with wiki-appropriate licenses. N2e (talk) 01:39, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So I conclude that it is:
  •  Not possible, at the present time, per Huntster; perhaps can be improved  Later
as more media is released that meets Wiki-image licensing guidelines, or perhaps we can later justify a "fair use" rationale of a single non-free image released by SpaceX. I don't believe that the absence of more/better images, or an iconic representative image of this entire technology program in the upper right corner of the article, should hold up the article passing a B-Level review, as even WP:GOODARTICLE standards do not require images in all situations. N2e (talk) 01:39, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • One other thing, the page title is a little bit odd - "rocket" and "launching system" are redundant to each other and it makes it sound as if it is a reusable system for launching rockets, rather than a reusable rocket development programme. Do you think a page move would be appropriate?
  • (under discussion)—see Talk page section below working on a new article name.—02:57, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
  •  Inconclusive—The "Article name" discussion, below, reached "no consensus." I don't believe the "little bit odd" article title should preclude the completion of the B-Class review, unless you want to go further and say that it is more than a "little bit odd" and is an "unacceptable" title for a B-Class article. N2e (talk) 01:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

--W. D. Graham 12:10, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Although there is no consensus on where to move the page to, I'd say there is a strong consensus that it should be moved. I'm going to provisionally mark this a B-class, on the condition that this issue is resolved by the end of the year. --W. D. Graham 14:37, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review! And I agree with you on the move: all three who weighed in were in agreement that a move was necessary; they just didn't come together on one of the early suggestions. I'll try to get back here when I have more time to see if we can't get more editors involved for a second time around. A bit too busy to do it today.N2e (talk) 02:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Move has been completed, per the consensus developed below, so I believe that completes any concerns you had in your provisional pass at B-class review. Please let me know if you have any other concerns. N2e (talk) 16:46, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Done—article name change was completed, per consensus, last week. See below. N2e (talk) 03:59, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
1) Ref #5 is handled...it no longer exists on the SpaceX site as far as I can tell, so I pulled from Archive.org. Performed lots of other citation fixes, including fixing a couple of URLs that were incorrect. I also agree that the forum cite should be removed...if a replacement cannot be located, the material needs to be excised. In my opinion, all the newspacewatch.com articles should be replaced since they've gone completely paywall (I'll be surprised if they survive), even though I've added archive links to all four of those cites.
2) I'll come back and clean up various conversion issues (definitely SI before non-SI in space-related articles), but I didn't immediately see much in the way of spelling issues. There's some formatting work to be done, but doesn't seem too bad.
3) As for images...they simply don't exist at this point in time (SpaceX is, after all, a private company, and conducts their testing in-house). I'm always keeping an eye out for them, but I don't expect anything until this version of the rocket is used for a NASA mission. However, lack of media should not disqualify the article from any status, even as Featured Article (I recall one last year that was passed without free media). Editors cannot be held responsible in situations like this.
4) I agree that "rocket" could be dropped from the title as redundant. Or, use something like "SpaceX reusable rocket program". Eh? — Huntster (t @ c) 14:09, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
5) Ref #39 is handled. I removed it for now, pending a reliable source, and opened a Talk page section on it below to let the editor who added that know why it was removed, and how it can get back in.
6) I believe that all of the non-US English issues are resolved. I asked editor Chris the speller to stop by and he helpfully found a way to make the {{convert}} template uses put the units in with US English spellings. N2e (talk) 02:57, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Article name

The article name was, when the article was created in early-2013, SpaceX reusable rocket launching system, and has been to date (November 2013). The recent B class review (see above) suggested a name change may be in order as "rocket" and "launching system" are redundant, rather than a "reusable rocket development programme"

I concur with the reviewer, User:WDGraham. This article is about a fairly complex development program for multiple rockets and parts of rockets (first stages, second stages) using multiple engines (e.g., LOX/RP1, LOX/Methane) and other technologies (various control systems designs, multiple kinds/designs of landing gear), eventually full TPS for second stages, etc). Moreover, the program, as stated by the company and supported by sources, is occurring, and will continue to occur, over multiple years. (and when first named, I added this hidden text to the first sentence of the lede: "The '''SpaceX reusable rocket launching system'''<!-- there may be a better name in the future, but this is the name used in the Feb 2012 source --> is ...", knowing a name change would need to be accomplished later.)

Here are some ideas. I'm not sure of my own view yet on any one of them as being the most correct, so have not written this as a proposal for any one particular name. But I am personally partial to it being a "development program" rather than a "launching system" as I had originally named the article, as it is not some sort of single or comprehensive system at all.

If you have other ideas to kick around, please add them with bullets. Cheers. N2e (talk) 15:15, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The first seems just fine, the second and third feel too wordy to me. No comment on the fourth :P — Huntster (t @ c) 15:20, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Somehow "rocket" seems a bit on the narrow side to me. Since we call the rockets that do regular launches launch vehicles, and it seems that this is really more of a system, including ground systems, than merely a rocket. Clearly, SpaceX is developing a set of technologies to accomplish a large/complex goal: fully/rapidly reusable launch vehicles: a system. N2e (talk) 15:31, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But the end result is still a rocket that is reusable. If you include ground systems in this mix, even current tech is (mostly) reusable. The rocket is what matters here, in my mind. — Huntster (t @ c) 16:16, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Of the four options suggested above my preferences would be #1 or #2. The third option is too wordy and in any case the end result of the programme will hopefully be a reusable rocket rather than just technology which might lead to one. I'm not sure about the scope on #4 either; this article will cover the development of the rocket but I would expect a separate article will be created when it actually starts flying. --W. D. Graham 18:41, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thinking about it a bit more, I much prefer #2, principally because it avoids the impression of the development of a single rocket. This development program is building a set of technologies that will be used as new piece parts of the booster of two existing rockets (Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy), and will be worked in in later years into one or more rocket second stages. N2e (talk) 04:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How does #1 imply a single rocket? I certainly don't read it that way. Besides, it's rocket technology being developed, seems like it would be appropriate to use that word in the title. I'm not going to get worked up over the issue, though, so I'll step away for now. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:33, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well you might have partially answered the question: if we were to say, "rocket technology development program", that would not be so unclear. But to date, no one has suggested that particular name. While there seems to be no consensus on any name as of yet, my sense is the "rocket development program" implies the development of a single rocket, which seems an incorrect impression to leave our readers. On the other hand, "launch system development program" seems to better summarize/imply in a title that a set of technologies are involved in the "launch system", whereas "rocket" does not provide that impression. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:51, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's been a week and no one else has joined the discussion. The discussion above did not reach a consensus on a name change. I'm not formally "closing" the discussion, just noting the "no consensus" result. If someone else wants to propose an article name change, propose away, perhaps starting a new section below. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:21, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, don't take my opinion as anything other than that...an opinion. There's consensus that the title needs to change, and if #2 is acceptable to both of you, then I say go for it. — Huntster (t @ c) 06:00, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Going once, going twice, ...

With the removal of an objection in the comment above by Huntster, it appears that we may have a consensus, since both other editors who weighed in (WDGraham and N2e) had indicated they would be okay with SpaceX reusable launch system development program, and all three editors have said that the current name needs to change.

Anyone else want to weigh in? If not, I'll move the article in about a week to SpaceX reusable launch system development program. N2e (talk) 17:43, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Done, per consensus. N2e (talk) 16:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

9 engines or 3 engines in the Grasshopper v1.1 flight test vehicle?

A statement was recently added to the article that questioned whether Grasshopper v1.1 will have all 9 engines, as the current source in the article asserts, or perhaps only 3. The question is a good one, and the argument for only three is a strong one. However, we have no reliable source for the statement; so I have removed it for now. This is the statement removed:

There is some debate though on the question of whether on this first version of the upgraded Grasshopper if it will use all nine engines, since for testing only three engines will be used. This is supported by an image showing a Grasshopper in construction with slots for only three engines in an online image.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://thespaceport.us/forum/topic/38529-spacex-grasshopper-updates/?p=482632 |title=SpaceX Grasshopper (updates), post #204 |work=TheSpacePort.us forum |date=October 20, 2013}}{{full|date=November 2013}}</ref>{{verify credibility|date=November 2013}}

We can add it back when a reliable source is found, which will likely be in the next few months, to confirm either way. Cheers. N2e (talk) 02:42, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hypervelocity velocities given in Mach number in the source

As the article currently exists, several hypervelocity velocities that are given as Mach number in the source, have been converted to both SI-system km per unit time used in Category:Spaceflight articles, as well as mph for our less-metric-familiar readers of the encyclopedia. Example, from the lede, the current sentence shows those conversions this way:

"If the technology is used on a reusable Falcon 9 rocket, the first stage separation would occur at 6,546 km/h (4,067 mph; Mach 6) rather than the much faster 11,200 km/h (6,960 mph; Mach 10) for an expendable Falcon 9, in order to provide the residual fuel necessary to complete the deceleration and turnaround maneuver, as well as the controlled descent and landing."<ref name="pm20120207" />

There are two problems with this, and one of them (the first) probably has to get fixed before the GA review of this article after late-January.

  1. The significant digits of the conversions (four digits) are ridiculously more than the one or two significant-digits of the source ("Mach 6" or "Mach 10"). At most, we should be rounding to two digits here.
  2. There was a debate, above, about whether km/s or km/h was the most appropriate SI set of units in which to show the velocity. Of the two editors who weighed in with opinions, one went each way, and a third editor (me, N2e) stayed agnostic/neutral at the time. I'm going to take a position now and say that km/s is the more ordinary velocity metric for showing hypervelocity transitions under atmospheric conditions.

Would like to kick both of these problems around on the Talk page, and get this cleaned up in the next month prior to a GA-article review. N2e (talk) 04:50, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Using only two significant figures isn't a problem, but I would like the figures double checked that they are correct with respect to altitude. Sources don't provide this info, and a cursory search didn't find anything. As for the SI argument, my concern is reader comprehension. Remember that our ultimate goal is for readers to fully understand what is written, and I'm concerned that using km/s isn't going to be nearly as meaningful as km/h. But again, this is just my opinion. — Huntster (t @ c) 11:13, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this is what you were talking about Huntster, but mach is a relative term. Mach 1 at sea level is not the same as mach 1 at 10km above sea level. So how exactly do we convert those units into SI when we don't have at the very least altitudes to work with?
On the other points N2e brought up, I'll agree with both suggestions. Rounding to two significant figures would be fine, and km/s is probably better, even though it's less likely to be understood by a casual non-technical reader. If they want they can click on a wikilink and see what it means. — Gopher65talk 16:20, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly what I was referring to Gopher...we'd need a source which gives the altitudes of first stage sep to properly convert the Mach figures. The Mach 10 sep figures for existing F9 rockets shouldn't be difficult to find, but I don't know that the Mach 6 altitudes are going to be available. If we can't find these altitude figures, it will be entirely inappropriate to provide conversions, as they will simply be wrong. I still do feel catering to the casual reader is important, though; I think most will know that "km/s" is kilometers per second, but I'm not sure that it will be nearly as meaningful as kilometers per hour...simply clicking a link isn't going to increase innate understanding of the figures. — Huntster (t @ c) 01:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Huntster, good point about the altitude. I'll offer two comments. 1) however much we need the altitude as the article is today, with four significant digits in the conversion, we need worry about it a bit less when we are going only for two-significant digits in the converted numbers. 2) an easy way out, which solves the significant digit issue AND the less-than-certain altitude problem, is to use either an "approximately x.y km/s" or perhaps could provide a range of speeds that would cover the estimated altitude range. Either way, I don't think we should go with leaving only a Mach no. in an encyclopedia article for a general readership. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:55, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, you're proposing that we switch to only mach numbers, because you don't have the altitude at which those mach values are correct. If you don't know the altitude then what use are the mach numbers anyway? It's just an arbitrary figure. --W. D. Graham 09:22, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's an interesting point. The mach numbers really are fairly meaningless here except that it gives readers an idea that there is a significant speed difference for first stage sep between F9 and F9R. — Huntster (t @ c) 12:07, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, agreed. So why don't we just use the "approximately x.y km/s" {along with the Mach no. given in the source and the mph for American readers) locution, and avoid the problem of being overly altitude sensitive. Mach numbers are rough order-of-magnitude sort of numbers, at least when given with no decimal point in a general article discussing comparative staging velocities for a general-audience news source. N2e (talk) 13:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to make a proposal, below. However, there was some concern over the need to confirm that the conversions we are using are correct, so I'm submitting the following to document that, and make our conversions explicit:

The conversions are based on the use of the {{convert/q}} template, which as far as I know, handles the numerical unit conversions quite well, but will not put the converted units in a form consistent with WP:WikiProject Spaceflight guidelines while doing so in a Good Article quality way. Here are those unit conversions from my sandbox, for the record:

  • km/h and mph conversions, assuming 90,000 feet altitude for Mach 6 and 120,000 feet altitude for Mach 10, which approximates the launch profile for this RP1/LOX first-stage booster.
    • {{convert/q|6|Mach|90000|abbr=on}} yields: {{convert/q|6|Mach|90000|abbr=on}}
    • {{convert/q|10|Mach|120000|abbr=on}} yields: {{convert/q|10|Mach|120000|abbr=on}}
  • km/s conversions, assuming 90,000 feet altitude for Mach 6 and 120,000 feet altitude for Mach 10, which approximates the launch profile for these RP1/LOX first-stage boosters.
    • {{convert/q|6|Mach|km/s|mph|90000|sigfig=2|disp=flip|sp=us|abbr=on}} yields: {{convert/q|6|Mach|km/s|mph|90000|sigfig=2|disp=flip|sp=us|abbr=on}}
    • {{convert/q|10|Mach|km/s|mph|120000|sigfig=2|disp=flip|sp=us|abbr=on}} yields: {{convert/q|10|Mach|km/s|mph|120000|sigfig=2|disp=flip|sp=us|abbr=on}}

Proposal for handling the Mach no. sources

I propose we take the rough agreement that is emerging above and handle the Mach nos. in that paragraph this way: approximate km/s (conversions to km/h, mph, and Mach), all rounded to two significant digits. N2e (talk) 19:29, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Example of the proposed change:

"... the first stage separation would occur at approximately 2.0 km/s (6,500 km/h; 4,100 mph; Mach 6) rather than the much faster 3.4 km/s (11,000 km/h; 7,000 mph; Mach 10) for an expendable Falcon 9..."

Here is the current way they are rendered, the way that got us through the B-level article review, but may not get us through the GA review.

"... the first stage separation would occur at 6,546 km/h (4,067 mph; Mach 6) rather than the much faster 11,200 km/h (6,960 mph; Mach 10) for an expendable Falcon 9..."
 Done—Okay, since it has been a week, I've gone ahead and made the proposed change to clean up the stage separation velocities, in line with the consensus in the discussion above. Used the {{convert/q}} numerical conversions as summarized in the section immediately above. N2e (talk) 23:29, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Source

A fairly in-depth article appeared on NASA Spaceflight earlier this month. Here's the link. Plan to hold off combing this for new info until after the thorough copyedit (currently underway) is complete. N2e (talk) 01:15, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Still needs looked at when time is available. N2e (talk) 19:49, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

February 2014 Copyedit

A major copyedit of the article is currently underway. It is being done by a request to the Guild of Copy Editors, and, specifically, by Baffle gab1978. This is a very good thing, and will much improve the article.

Copyeditor comments and requests

  • TBD

Questions/notes by others

  • SpaceX has made clear (sourced in the body) that this reusable launch technology is key to all of their future rockets, even beyond the currently operational Falcon 9 and the late-in-development, soon-to-be-operational Falcon Heavy. So whatever methane-engine rockets are developed, and new larger rockets that are still in early development would be included. Should we make this clear in the lede section? N2e (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The third paragraph of the History section may conflate the first Grasshopper test vehicle (Grasshopper v1.0) with the second (Grasshopper v1.1). The "second" is referred to in the beginning of the paragraph; while the prose switches to the first Grasshopper later in the para, without making the switch explicit. N2e (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first para of the lede includes: "Both stages are designed to be available for reuse a few hours after return." This is a long-term objective, not really something that is already in the "current design"--although it is fair to say that the major mechanical parts (tanks, tank structures, rigidity, attachment points, etc.) are all "designed" (as is) to support that objecgtive. However, there is a lot of software design, attitude control algorithms, navigation, etc., etc. on the vehicle that is still/yet being designed as they go through the flight test program. As well, a large amount of ground infrastructure and operational procedures are not yet in place to support the "few hours" long term objective. Maybe some slight rewording would be useful? N2e (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did you copyedit the Technologies section? I didn't notice any edit comments from you on that section? N2e (talk) 04:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    •  Done Looks like Baffle gab came back at 2014-02-06T05:12:11‎ Baffle gab1978 and copyedited that particular section.
  • In the intro to the Grasshopper section, it says: "Four additional test flights were made in August 2013." That's not quite right. The old text was correct (but incomplete, I now see): "Four additional test flights have been made through August 2013." It is true that four additional flights had been made by August 2013, in addition to the three already mentioned. But an eighth, and final, test flight of the GHv1.0 vehicle was made in Oct 2013. So, perhaps, we might say something like: "Five additional test flights have been made through October 2013." Or you may have better ideas? N2e (talk) 04:44, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I find the use of "through" confusing in this context. I'd normally expect to find that preposition used to describe a physical thing/location, such as "the cat ran though the kitchen", and not to indicate the end of a time period. In this context I'd expect a different preposition, such as "by the end of August...". How about replacing it with "Five more test flights had been carried out by the end of October 2013", or "SpaceX carried out the eight—and final—test flight of the vehicle on October 19, 2013"? Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 18:31, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I'm fine with one of your ideas. The point was just that the copyedit left it incorrect on a small technical detail: there weren't four flights made in August of 2013. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:50, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
 Done—I changed one instance of "through October" to "by the end of October". Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 23:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article?

As an editor who has contributed to the development of this article over the past year+, and with a launch scheduled for next month that, if successful, will be a test flight that will be a notable achievement in the History of human technological advances, I have wanted to see if the article might be improved up to the quality level expected of Wikipedia Good article.

In fact, if this very first attempt to bring an orbital launch vehicle booster back to the launch site for future reuse is successful—rather than using the technique of the the first sixty years of the space age where orbital booster rockets, including the Shuttle external tank, have just been dumped in the ocean—the article will likely be of interest to a much larger group of Wikipedia readers around the time of that flight.

It therefore seems prudent to take a look at the criteria, as an "insider" who helped edit the article, prior to nominating the article for GA status. I intend to do that today. N2e (talk) 15:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Internal look against the criteria

edit 

Good Article criteria

To that end, these are the current criteria: A good article is—

  1. Well-written:
    1. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and
    2. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
  2. Verifiable with no original research:
    1. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
    2. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose); and
    3. it contains no original research.
  3. Broad in its coverage:
    1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
    2. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
    1. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
    2. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
more...

And here is my (inside) take on the article measuring up.

(I'm not saying this makes it GA; only that I wouldn't want to waste the time of outside reviewers if those editors interested in the article have not at least considered the criteria prior to nomination.)
  • Verifiable with no original research:
    • The article appears to be well-sourced to reliable sources and inline citations to footnotes.
  • Broad in its coverage:
    • The article seems to cover all aspects of the technology development program, including the various technologies involved, and the multiple phases of the test program happening at multiple locations around the US.
  • Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.
    • I'm not aware of significant criticism or controversy that is not covered in the article.
  • Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
    • The article has been quite stable for the past couple of months, with the exception of the GOCE copy edit mentioned above, and has no ongoing content disputes of any kind.
  • Illustrated, if possible, by images
    • The images used in the article are not as good as some editors would like, including me (N2e). They are not as good as some of the images released to news media on this technology and test program, but those do not have the sort of copyright that we can use in Wikipedia. (see above discussion on the Talk page in December 2013 and Janurary 2014.)
However, from GA criteria no. 6: "The presence of images is not, in itself, a requirement. However, if images (or other media) with acceptable copyright status are appropriate and readily available, then some such images should be provided."
So I believe it measures up to the minimal GA criteria for images, although we continue to search for better license-appropriate images of this technology development and testing.

Therefore, on net, I do not believe it would be a waste of time to request a formal GA review of the article, and ask some outside editors to come in and review it. Cheers. N2e (talk) 16:29, 20 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 In progress—I have since nominated the article for a formal GA review. N2e (talk) 18:19, 24 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:SpaceX reusable launch system development program/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jamesx12345 (talk · contribs) 22:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take this on in the next few days. Jamesx12345 22:19, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Initial review punch list

  • Intro seems a bit verbose. Perhaps another picture of the Grasshopper - to illustrate the concept of a rocket landing - would help?
    • Re: Grasshopper photo: I very much agree. Have been endeavoring to find a Wiki-licensable photo of Grasshopper flying for 18 months now. See extensive discussion on Talk page. User:Huntster, who is both very wiki-photo knowledgeable and an Admin on the English Wikipedia tells us that there simply are not any wiki-allowable images that anyone has yet found of Grasshopper in flight. (although there are lots of good Youtube videos released by the company). I've wondered whether perhaps a fair use criteria might work, but editors strong in wiki-photo fu have told me no dice. N2e (talk) 01:25, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • checkY—Hey James. See what I said before (above) about the challenges of obtaining a WP-license-able photo, and let me know if you are okay with this for a GA review. The editor who provided me the rather strict interpretation of fair use and the WP license practices did allow that some other editors might not take as hard a line on it as he does. However, I've not gone and tried to pursue a consensus from a larger group on this. N2e (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm afraid I don't know much about image licensing. It doesn't actually need any images at all for the purpose of a GAR, but they do make it easier to understand. Ideally, somebody would pay for me to attend a launch and I'd take a few snaps :-) Jamesx12345 21:34, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          •  Question: —Oh, that might work. We have a LOT of photos of the launches. Anytime a rocket launches from a US government leased facility (such as the pads that SpaceX leases from the US Air Force), the USG takes lots of photos, and they are released under quite acceptable licenses. So we could definitely get more of those; there is one in the article already.
The problem is our EXTREMELY limited photoset from anything at all related to the reusable technology (e.g., Grasshopper v1.0 flying, or of the landing-over-water tests). These are private, SpaceX takes lots of photos; releases a very few to the press, but none with Creative Commons-acceptable licenses.
So do you think we should just insert another photo of the rocket launching? (beyond the one we have in the article now?) None of that is reusable tech tests etc. N2e (talk) 22:19, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


    • Re: tightening up the prose: The article just went through a WP:GOCE. But one idea I had is that we could delete the following sentence from the second paragraph, as it is only summarizing details presented in the article: "Eight low-altitude flight tests were made in 2012 and 2013. The first booster return controlled-descent test from high-altitude was made in September 2013, and a second test is planned for March 2014.[2][3]" Would you think that would help? N2e (talk) 03:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think so. Schedules seem like the kind of info best kept for the main body of the article.
  • "occur at a velocity of approximately" - km/s would be adequate here, I think.
    • I would tend to agree, but what is there is a result of somewhat involved Talk page consensus; moreover, the original source only gives the velocities in Mach numbers, which are approximate, and so we felt we ought to leave those Mach nos. in the encyclopedia prose. And generally, in spaceflight related articles, we give velocities in both SI units and in English measurment units for a global audience. Do you think the GA criteria would trump the Talk page consensus? I would be happy to revisit the topic with the previous discussants. N2e (talk) 01:25, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • If there is a local consensus to have it one way, I see no problem with that. Jamesx12345 21:42, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Cool, then that's Approved by you. N2e (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It said this was an approximation." - this single sentence looks a bit odd. It also makes the use of refs 6 and 7 a bit unclear.
  • I've tagged 4 dead links using Checklinks. There's also a [citation needed] needing fixed, but that might be covered by ref 46.
    •  In progress
      • The WPO article is based on this video by AP [1] - I think that might be a better ref. Template:Cite AV media could be used for this purpose. Jamesx12345 17:27, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks. Unfortunately that link at the AP only has a couple minutes of the news conference on it. But I was able to locate another link, on the National Press Club archive. I've added that video link (as you suggested) to the NPC line to supplement the (very good, but now dead) WaPo article. N2e (talk) 18:47, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've just removed the link altogether. I think it's probably less confusing that way, and just as good as an unlinked ref to a paper source. Jamesx12345 20:38, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • That's a good solution. I wasn't sure what the standard is for that sort of thing (leave the link? take it out? what sort of note to leave? etc.) I'm very glad that you, as an experienced GA reviewer, knew what to do with that.
In the meantime, I think I still have a couple more of the deadlinks to crawl through, and a few more "in process" items to work. N2e (talk) 21:36, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • checkY—James, I've looked and believe there are no more dead links. But I don't know how to use checklinks, so if you would please take a look at this and then let us know if you are good to go. N2e (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cool, then that's another one Approved by you. N2e (talk) 16:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "first stage is now being flight tested" - very liable to dating. Given that you and some other editors have focused on this article for a fair length of time, it should be OK, but an {{As of}} or {{Update after}} could be used.
  • "News of the new test rocket" - "News of the test rocket"
  • "re-entry database" - not sure what this is. From the context, it seems to be data that will allow a computer to work out where it will land, but I could be quite far off the mark.
    •  Fixed It is really just a bunch of wind tunnel test data that shows how a very large rocket body (about 3.3 metres in diameter and over 50 metres long behaves at a bunch of different velocities and altitudes in the atmosphere, with the rocket body moving through the atmosphere in various orientations. It's all quite essential for coding up the control algorithms to tell the engines and thrusters what to do based on where the returning rocket finds itself. But I can really see how that esoteric info was quite unclear with the term "re-entry database". Good catch! — N2e (talk) 22:40, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • NASA can be linked in the first instance.
  • "reusable rocket system that will be powered by LOX/methane, "an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster", and reiterated SpaceX's commitment to develop a vertical landing breakthrough technology." - "reusable rocket system to be powered by LOX/methane, "an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster", and reiterated SpaceX's commitment to develop a vertical landing technology." - update tense, rm "breakthrough" - don't think it's needed.
    • This one is a bit more complex; principally because it is not a second LOX/methane technology; it is a second reusable rocket system, and this one will be both much larger, and also will be powered by a different fuel (LOX/methane rather than LOX/RP-1 as in the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy). At any rate, I've made a stab at making it more clear. See what you think. N2e (talk) 22:54, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • checkY—James—Please me us what you think here. N2e (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Much better than what I suggested (which isn't very clear on reading it again). Jamesx12345 21:48, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • Cool, one more Approved by you. N2e (talk) 16:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "24-story" - this needs a source, preferably for the height in metres. In terms of buildings, the spelling should be storey.
    •  Fixed. Added a source, and eliminated the "24-story" reference completely. BTW, in American English, the height of buildings is spelled "story", whereas it is "storey" in British and Canadian English. There is one other reference to "12-story" in the article (about an earlier Grasshopper test flight). Let me know if you think it might be better to eliminate that arcane sort of linear measurement as well now that I took out the "24-story" term. N2e (talk) 00:15, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I stand corrected.
  • "SpaceX made history in September 2013 when it relit" - "In September 2013, SpaceX successfully for the first time relit" - seems a bit promotional. My wording isn't great, it's just the "made history" that doesn't feel quite right.
    •  Fixed — I've copyedited this, and eliminated the "made history." Yes, sounds a bit promotional in that form. It was an historic event, and something that had not been successfully accomplished with a booster rocket strictly under rocket-control (no aeronautical flight surfaces like wings or a lifting body, etc.) previously. See what you think. N2e (talk) 23:51, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "for March 2014 at the earliest." - another ref needed. I'll stop referring to refs by number since they might change unpredictably as you add or move them.
    •  Fixed — and good idea on referring to them by some other means. I'll just search for your textual clues. N2e (talk) 23:51, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transonic can be linked.
  • There is inconsistent use of full stops in Technology. I think it's just 3 that are needed.
    •  Fixed, but recommend you take a look to see if the three remaining are the three you were thinking of. — N2e (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and upon introducing space launch customers to the idea of putting a payload in space with a used stage" - quite colloquial "and upon space launch customers being willing to put a payload in space with a used stage" is a bit clearer, maybe.
    •  In progress—not quite sure how to reword this... The idea in the source is that this is very new thinking to the sorts of large customers who might buy launch services, and that customers may very well not warm to the idea of utilizing a "used" booster to carry their precious cargo to orbit ('they've never done it that way before' ... it has never been an option since government-designed space programs, in all nation-states that have gotten to space, have only built expendable systems, and even with that, they can only get a very small percentage of the liftoff weight (something like 3%) to orbit. This really is a huge paradigm shift for the industry, if SpaceX are even successful in getting this expensive project to work at all. At any rate, that is the idea behind "introducing space launch customers to the idea of putting a payload in space with a used stage" -- but I'm thinking on some ways to rephrase that.
      • checkY—James—please note my comment above and see what you think now. N2e (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • It looks OK now on second reading. If anything, I think more could be made of concerns about reliability (have any agencies said anything for example? I don't think the JWST would go up on a used booster, for example.)
          • Cool, one more down. Approved by you. N2e (talk) 16:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "If all aspects of the test program go very well, and if a customer is interested, SpaceX said in September 2013 that the first reflight of a Falcon 9 booster stage could be done in late 2014." - "in September 2013, SpaceX said that if all aspects of the test program are successful and a customer is interested, the first reflight of a Falcon 9 booster stage could be done in late 2014."
  • "have a major impact on the cost of access to space" - not sure about the use of the quote here. I think there is probably some scope for expansion with regard to what it would mean for putting things in orbit.
    •  Fixed — I have removed the direct quotation and rewritten the prose. N2e (talk) 17:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Technical Feasibility section is a bit odd. I think it would be better if it were integrated into Technologies, with the problems and solutions in one place.
    •  In progress Two comments for now: 1) I believe the difficulty of this undertaking is of such a magnitude, and so many have thought quite impossible, that it probably does warrant a section on Technical feasibility to address this. Moreover, while this sort of return/landing and reuse have been hypothesized for decades in Science Fiction and a few academic papers, none of the current space programs have even attempted full and rapid reuse. 2) Having said that, I do not believe the prose that was in the section adequately covered the problem nor the topic. I have made several edits to broaden the explication of the problem, and how SpaceX has (to date) only a theoretical understanding that it can be done, and may be economic to do so. I will look to make a few more changes here in the coming days. N2e (talk) 17:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • checkY—James—Okay, I've made a few more changes. See what you think. N2e (talk) 21:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        •  Question: I think maybe you didn't see this one yesterday. N2e (talk) 16:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


  • The bullet points in Test program are also inconsistent re. full stops.
  • "tests of post-mission (spent) Falcon 9 booster stages" - that link is a bit confusing. I think that whole bullet could be made somewhat clearer, perhaps by starting with "September 2013..."
  • "Grasshopper is a set of experimental technology-demonstrator..." - the two refs in that paragraph not at the end of the sentences - currently 33 and 34 - could be moved to the end.
  • "...flight tests of the vehicle are to occur in Texas." - ref needed.
  • "...and did so." - this is quite abrupt, and also needs a ref. I can't help but feel that there is a nicer way to say it.
  • "Four additional test flights were made in August 2013." - another ref, or instance of ref.
  • "Grasshopper version 1.0... and is 106 feet (32 m) tall." - is quite clumsy. Perhaps "Grasshopper version 1.0, the company's first test vehicle, consisted of a Falcon 9 [v1.0] first stage tank and pressuriser with a single Merlin-1D engine. It had four steel landing legs and a support structure, and stood 106 feet (32 m) tall." or something like that.
  • "In an arrangement unusual for launch vehicles,[18] some first stages of the SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 versions of the rocket are testing propulsive-return, over-water aspects of the reusable rocket technology." - this is quite confusing, and it is unclear what the ref supports - I would move it to the end of the sentence. Another ref might be needed in that paragraph.
  • "Falcon 9 test plan calls for the" - does this need to be updated?
I did some further copyediting on this. Since it is an introductory paragraph to the section, I think it best for it to describe the general test plan for these post-mission booster descent tests, not just any one particular test. The test history is better covered in the paragraphs below the introduction. See what you think. N2e (talk) 16:02, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • [citation needed] needs addressed at the end of that paragraph.
    • {Fixed}. I just reused the reference at the beginning of the next paragraph, since that whole paragraph about that very flight. — Gopher65talk 20:03, 9 March 2014 (UTC) Never mind, I didn't actually fix this, I fixed something else instead:P. Sorry. — Gopher65talk 20:05, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      •  Fixed—for real, this time. N2e (talk) 20:57, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the booster stage attitude was reversed" - also confusing.


I'll wait for you to make any changes you feel are necessary and look at it again in a few days. Sorry for the delay in completing this review - I've been quite heavily occupied for the past few weeks. Jamesx12345 18:32, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much James! Glad you made it through the entire article. I'll get back to addressing your review comments starting today.
In the meantime, I see that another editor has helpfully joined in to help get the article improved to GA quality. Thanks Gopher65! N2e (talk) 16:02, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

James — I believe that that we have addressed 100% of the items you identified above. I've left 4 or 5 questions for you as marked by the YELLOW CHECKMARKS: checkY, like this. See what you think.

Please address the old items in the list above, but add any new items you see below, as the long list is getting rather hard to navigate. N2e (talk) 21:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Continuation, after the initial "punch list" was worked through

Since this list is kind of long and hard to navigate, I'm starting a new section for new items that you or Gopher65 see that need attention. N2e (talk) 21:28, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

James, I have tidied up the list above, trying to ensure I've not missed anything. I believe there are just two questions for you now, both marked with the  Question: symbol. N2e (talk) 16:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I've watched the videos, and admit that it is pretty cool. Launch 8 especially is pretty spectacular from above. I'm afraid I can't finish tonight, and probably not tomorrow, but will definitely get all your comments replied by Saturday. Sorry. Jamesx12345 23:22, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. That will be fine. (and BTW, just late yesterday US time, SpaceX and NASA announced that the CRS-3 flight would be delayed at least a couple of weeks, so the second high-altitude, booster controlled-descent flight test won't occur any earlier than March 30th.) N2e (talk) 03:34, 14 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Part II

I'll just look through it again since it has changed quite a bit. This review shouldn't take long. Jamesx12345 12:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • A larger family photo would be nice - maybe 250px or something.
    •  In progress I'm having a bit of trouble with the resize parameter; it is dropping the image caption whenever I replace "thumb" with "250px". I asked for some help. — N2e (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Restarts are required at both supersonic..." - perhaps a quick note about why there are two restarts?
  • "throttleable rocket engine technology" - this bullet is quite short, and also uncited. An explanation (or even a definition) would make it more useful.
  • "order of magnitude" could be linked (just for the definition.)
  • "However, even if SpaceX is successful with the technology..." - that's a really fascinating point.
    • Thanks.  Done — N2e (talk) 04:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would spell out the full name of the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation - it's quite well known.
  • "...nearly precludes it." - this would need a ref in this form.

I'm happy now that I've read through all of it, and that it meets the GA criteria. Thanks for being much quicker at responding to my comments than I was to yours. Jamesx12345 16:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More sources for future consideration

  • Triumph of His Will, Esquire Magazine, 15 Nov 2012. A long form magazine piece that includes support material for the necessity of the reusable technology to SpaceX' Mars plans, plus support material for the vertical integration of the rocket manufacturing facility (e.g., aluminum rocket tank domes being brought in-house due to excessively high price offered by Alcoa Aluminum, etc.) plus more: Musk's journey from South Africa through Canada to the US, citizenship, Musk's family, others involved in the formation of the (very short-lived) "Life to Mars" company, and then the formation of SpaceX, early Falcon 1 launch failures, etc. Probably a useful source for several related articles.) N2e (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Test Flight 1/ Test Flight 2

These subject headings maybe should be the actual mission designators? CASSIOPE or SES-8 or Thaicom-6 or what have you.... ++Lar: t/c 12:38, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Illustration

The Falcon family illustration is helpful but can it be put more into chrono order? The versions with legs should be to the right of those without. ++Lar: t/c 12:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have added your comment to the Talk page for the SVG graphic file on Wikimedia: [2] Maybe someone with the right skillset and editing tools can update the file. N2e (talk) 02:21, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Source

This recent interview has Musk quoted and making it explicit and clear that SpaceX has not yet succeeded with reusability, despite a number of attempts. Elon Musk Interview, at AskMen, published in April 2014.

Also has this Musk quote describing the process of getting reusability to work:

"Expendable rockets, which many smart people have worked on in the past, get maybe 2% of liftoff mass to orbit -- really not a lot. Then, when they’ve tried reusability, it’s resulted in negative payload, a 0 to 2% minus payload [laughs]. The trick is to figure out how to create a rocket that, if it were expendable, is so efficient in all of its systems that it would put 3% to 4% of its mass into orbit. On the other side, you have to be equally clever with the reusability elements such that the reusability penalty is no more than 2%, which would leave you with a net ideally of still 2% of usable load to orbit in a reusable scenario, if that makes sense. You have to pry those two things apart: Push up payload to orbit, push down the mass penalty for reusability -- and have enough left over to still do useful work."

Cheers, N2e (talk) 23:52, 10 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Early history

Here is some even earlier history, from before the November 2011 public rollout of the new propulsive-return approach to reusability.

  • January 2009: Musk ambition: SpaceX aim for fully reusable Falcon 9 (Note: this was a full year and a half prior to the first launch attempt of a Falcon 9 rocket, and only a few months after SpaceX first ever successful orbital flight, after three failures.} So SpaceX were batting only 0.250 on launches, and Musk is publicly talking about the essential need of reusability for space launch in general, and for SpaceX Falcon 9 in particular—at a time when none of the serious space launch companies were doing so, nor spending private money to do so (although many are/were willing to take government contracts to work on anything their state patron will pay them for and on which they can earn a profit..

This earlier-date material might be worth extending the history back a bit earlier than it now is. If others have an opinion, leave it here. Or you are welcome to use this source to add earlier history yourself. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:33, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious

The article says that The challenge of creating a reusable rocket is almost impossible due to the small percentage of a rocket's mass that can make it to orbit. and Typically, a rocket's payload is only about 3% of the mass of the rocket which is also roughly the amount of mass in fuel that is required for the vehicle's re-entry. I couldn't find this clearly stated in the sources mentioned, and while it is true for single stage to orbit reusable vehicles, it is not true for multi-stage vehicles like Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:33, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • The language "almost impossible" is not directly quoted from the source, nor does the source contain any information to support the assertion that the feasibility is low. I personally think that sentence is misleading. Tesla Tree (talk) 18:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the wording "almost impossible" comes not from the cited article, but the talk that Musk gave before the National Press Club (which is referenced in the cited article). Perhaps the video of the National Press Club presentation where he made that statement should be added as a citation. Further, perhaps it should be identified as a direct quote from Musk rather than simply repeated here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.3.57.79 (talk) 19:12, 5 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the wording is poor and should be changed (it isn't almost impossible, it's "merely" difficult. Heh. Merely.). However, that bit about the "3% of the mass of the rocket" is quite true. In most 2 stage rockets, like the Falcon 9, it's more like a little less than 2%. Some particularly well designed, highly efficient, low safety margin, 3 stage rockets can hit 4%. It doesn't go much higher than that. Chemical fuel just isn't energetic enough for better numbers.
The issue is that adding reuseability to a rocket is estimated to reduce payload to orbit by a bit more than 2 percentage points. For most 2 stage rockets that would mean the extra mass would be enough to stop them from obtaining orbit (less than 2% - more than 2% = nothing making it to orbit). Or, as Musk put it, they have a "negative payload to orbit". The 3% given in the article is just an averaging of the industry standard 2-4% figure. It should be replaced by "2 to 4 percent" IMO. SSTO vehicles face similar problems, by the way. The added weight reduces their payload to orbit to negative numbers. — Gopher65talk 02:04, 2 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not all of it is true. It's true that payload fractions are only a few percentage points, but that can be overcome by using multiple stages. Whether that is economical is another question, but there is no doubt that it is physically possible. Whether (reusable) single stage to orbit is possible is not certain. Some believe it is, others are skeptical. Two stage to orbit is generally believed to be possible, and three stage to orbit should be no problem. Martijn Meijering (talk) 08:23, 2 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I just came upon this discussion from a couple of months ago. Took a look. I have added another source to that section about the challenge of achieving reusability on orbital launches from Earth. Hope that helps. N2e (talk) 03:47, 27 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jeff Foust economic fallacy

I deleted a paragraph from the article citing Jeff Foust stating that profits for SpaceX could decrease even if SpaceX was successful. This is nonsensical. For one thing, SpaceX offers launch services, not rockets for sale, so if they are successful, demand for their services will be unaffected. SpaceX will keep their hardware, and could charge just as much per launch while maintaining the same number of annual contracts. SpaceX would only decrease the price if demand is elastic and thus would increase profits, they would only sell the rockets if liquidating was most profitable. Innovation never leads to loss of revenue. The deleted paragraph is highly dubious to say the least #econfallacy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fauble2000 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. Well, a few things:
  • I thank you for explicitly bringing your rationale for your edit to the Talk page. That's good process.
  • I'm going to be agnostic on whether the material stays or goes, principally because I have developed a fair bit of the content in this particular Good article and want other editors to weigh in on a debate like this. I will, however, offer some thoughts for other editors who may happen upon this discussion.
  1. Within the rocket industry, the argument you removed is an argument that is rather frequently made about reusability. And it is sometimes made by serious people (who may or may not understand economics).
  2. As an economist myself, teaching at university level economics, I have an opinion on this. However, my opinion is, from a Wikipedia point of view as regards statements in the article space, merely original research; which is what the opinions of other editors are as well. So we use verifiable secondary sources to reflect in article content, rather than our opinions.
  3. The author of that article (Michael Belfiore) is a serious space journalist, and he has (in this case) chosen to use an analytical view expressed by Jeff Foust, who is a serious spaceflight and technology analyst. Moreover, Belfiore published that piece in the rather respectable MIT Technology Review. Now, Foust might very well be wrong, or right, but this is not something that should be dismissed out of hand just on one editor's view. Thus the comment I'm writing here.
  4. SpaceX has had a fairly remarkable series of accomplishments here, and a fairly successful test program to date. Thus, the article reads rather positively for this company with respect to this particular technology. As a matter of balance, it may be appropriate to reflect some doubts about the economics that have been expressed by serious space analysts and covered by serious space journalists published in mainline technology news.
  5. The economics of reusability, and how reusability of rocket stages may, or may not, affect the economic return for companies in the launch industry is certainly relevant to this article on reusable launch technology development.
I'll leave the rest of the debate, and consensus building, to other editors. Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:48, 26 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion the article gives undue weight to the optimistic side, and in particular the "Economic issues" section would benefit from a broader presentation of the pessimistic view. As an aid to others, the Belfiore article is at http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525426/spacex-set-to-launch-the-worlds-first-reusable-booster/. It seems to me the paragraph that was removed did not adequately summarize the article's coverage of Foust's opinion. The Foust quote which is likely causing controversy here is, “A reusable system with much lower launch costs might actually result in lower revenue for that company unless they can significantly increase demand.” I don't believe that quote fully captures Foust's thinking, but I haven't found a different quote in which he covers this scenario more explicitly and shows the steps in his chain of logic. (sdsds - talk) 04:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
True, and that is another reason that I originally added the counterargument that appears in the Belfiore piece by space analyst Foust. Doesn't matter whether we, as wiki editors, agree with it or not; if verifiable and sourced info is out there that criticizes or provides an alternative view, then it needs to be covered in the article.
More generally, we want to avoid WP:UNDUE. So any sourced info that provides a counter to the "optimistic side" should be freely and liberally added to the article. I think part of the reason it seems as optimistic as it does today is that, prior to the demise of the F9R development vehicle in Texas a couple of months ago, things have been going rather swimmmingly for SpaceX, and even AvWeek, which is not known as a particular supporter of the emerging NewSpace side of the industry, has come out rather positive on SpaceX' accomplishments, and held them up as a model (per the sourced statement in the article).
Net: editors should add counter arguments and counter-history when there are sources to back it up. Cheers. N2e (talk) 15:13, 14 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thermal imaging of a controlled-descent test flight

NASA released a fantastically-detailed video last week of thermal imaging of the SpaceX Falcon 9 controlled-descent test on 21 Sep 2014. Huntster did the work to turn that video into an acceptable open ogg version for Wikipedia, and I have placed it in the article. This is the first real data of any kind that has been publically released on the technical aspects of the controlled-descent tests, as SpaceX has chosen to keep most of their proprietary data to themselves, and NASA was apparently unsuccessful in their attempt to capture the data on the previous three flights that had a controlled-descent test.

Seven discrete events are shown in the video:

  • post stage separation, with the first stage in the second stage rocket exhaust plume, with some residual exhaust still exiting from the shut-off first stage engines.
  • the first stage maneuvers out of the second stage plume
  • first stage coasting near peak altitude of approximately 140 kilometers (87 mi)
  • first stage boost back burn to limit downrange translation
  • first stage prepares for the reentry burn
  • first stage begin reentry burn at approximately 70 kilometers (43 mi) altitude
Note: this is the "powered flight through the Mars-relevant retropulsion regime" that was stated to be of the greatest interest to the NASA researchers who were thermal imaging SpaceX' controlled-descent test on the CRS-4 flight. A summary of what the Mars EDL team are trying to learn from this research is now summarized, with sources, in the Mars atmospheric entry article.
  • first stage ends reentry burn at approximately 40 kilometers (25 mi) altitude

The thermal imaging data was gathered by NASA WB-57 aircraft flying at 15 kilometres (50,000 ft), using a telescopic Mid-Wave Infrared (MWIR) sensor. The display was color enhanced, and is played back at a 10 Hz rate; color scale is MWIR sensor counts. The NASA film was produced by the Space Technology Mission Directorate, Game Changing Development Program, in cooperation with SpaceX.

Question: is there any way to take an ogg video and select a particular moment in it to serve as the default still image that shows on the article image? The current still is all blue sky with little or no graphic interest. Cheers. N2e (talk) 11:59, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done, chose a bright scene clear of text. This is done with the |thumbtime= parameter, with the image set with "h:m:ss" (and if known, you can set decimal seconds for extra precision). In this case, I went with |thumbtime=0:2:04. — Huntster (t @ c) 19:38, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Test Four

The cited reference says that the booster flew *toward* a zero-velocity/zero-altitude touchdown, it doesn't say that the booster obtained it. Elon's interview at MIT did *not* include CRS-4 in his enumeration of successful landing attempts. In the same interview he mentioned that the legs (which were missing from CRS-4 for schedule reasons) reduced terminal velocity by half. Without a more precise source, we can't say whether or not the booster actually obtained a zero-velocity-at-zero-altitude touchdown. I tweaked the article to use the sourced Aviation Week wording instead (flew the a profile approaching zero-velocity/zero-altitude).

To be more bold, one might actually mention the fact that Elon did not include this flight in his enumeration of successful landing attempts, although the pre-landing profile captured by NASA is stated to be successful and accurate. See http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/elon-musk-at-mits-aeroastro-centennial-part-1-of-6-2014-10-24

See also http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35385.msg1277242#msg1277242 for some more discussion on this point by folks knowledgeable in the domain, who might be able to provide more specific sourced statements. C. Scott Ananian (talk) 19:17, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had added that to flight 4 recently, only after re-reading the Aviation Week article and seeing the zero velocity at zero altitude locution mentioned. If you have checked that source carefully and believe the context was only speaking aspirationally, and not stating that it was achieved on the flight where the thermal imaging data was captured (which was how I had read it), then you should go ahead and edit the article to make it accurate to whatever is supported by the source. I'm certainly not trying to make it say any more than the source, and may have read it wrong when I made that edit. Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BRD on recent deletion

Editor Winged Brick deleted a section, and left a rationale in the edit comment. I reverted in order to discuss the matter on the Talk page, per WP:BRD. My view: long-term stable section in a good article should be discussed on the Talk page, and consensus built, before such a large removal. Beyond that, I'll let Winged Brick articulate the rational for the deletion here, and other editors can weigh in on the merits. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I figured it would be obvious. the section, "Popular Culture" implies that content is both popular and part of the culture. Two passing references to Buck Rogers do not qualify in any way for inclusion in pop culture. Even if they did, their inclusion in an article on a test program for a reusable launch system seem very difficult to connect with Buck Rogers. --Winged Brick (talk) 02:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I must agree with WB on this...section is (in my view) nothing more than trivia. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:09, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'll put in my own thought on this now. I don't believe policy is such that this popular culture reference would be inappropriate given the two sources, or have to be removed. Having said that, my interest was mainly to get multiple-editor discussion and consensus on it, and I'll try to help that here. So let me address both aspects.
Wikipedia is written, and read, largely by younger people of a particular cultural and experiential background, and most of those people are little familiar with the multi-decade cultural norm in the early part of the 20th century that perceived these (mostly) future rockets to be of the type that, overwhelmingly, would land vertically. Moreover, Buck Rogers, although a fictional character, was a widely-known cultural reference in the newspaper age over several decades of that period. I have recently asked several 70 to 90 year old American's "what does the name "Buck Rogers" mean? Who was he?". This is anecdotal, so not determinative, but they have "known" who he was, from the comic strips that were in newspapers for decades prior to the 1960s. There are thousands of "popular culture" type references in Wikipedia today that have meaning to other fairly narrow demographic groups, and some have much less support in sources than these we are discussing. So my take is that if Wikipedia is written to be the "encyclopedia of human knowledge", and have a relatively-long-term use, and not be mere news articles, we editors must keep in mind that we write for a potential readership that is much wider than the cultural milieu that we tend to inhabit.
Having said all that, I don't think it is critical right now to have the broader cultural reference in this article. The two sources given back the statement, and refer to SpaceX and their reusable rocket projects, but they are each a bit oblique. If the material is removed for now, until better sources are located in the future, it won't harm the article (much, although it won't have the cultural reference for a group of our less-frequent readers). But I will support the consensus, whichever way it falls out. N2e (talk) 12:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So, are we ready to delete the section again? Two for deletion; one abstain? I do understand that the term "Buck Rogers" means something in relation to pop culture in the early 20th century, but the application to this article is just silly. Two passing mentions in articles do not warrant inclusion here. In fact, inclusion here amounts to more popular culture notoriety (undeserved) than the two citations. I'm going to delete it tomorrow. --Winged Brick (talk) 19:42, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Discussing a couple of recent edits

Hey Appable, you recently attempted to clean up and reorganize some of the info about the series of test flights. The clean-up/reorg was needed, but I'm not sure about a few details of what you did. Could probably do a WP:BRD to discuss it, but I think some of it is useful, so let's just discuss.

  1. I think the table of contents is getting rather too many levels, and levels on too low a detail, with your movement of the faux headers to headers. I don't feel strongly about this if you feel the opposite, but I just note that not every subsection is terribly beneficial to readers to be listed in the TOC, and I have observed in the past that many other articles I've run use faux headers for the very lowest level, seemingly with the intent to keep them from showing up in the TOC. I've never even looked up wiki-guidelines on the matter; just leaving an observation here on that item. But do step back and take a look at the current TOC after your edits; I'm thinking it's a bit ugly, and too much detail in the TOC.
  2. The main mission—transporting cargo to some planned orbital trajectory—is the only mission that is associated with the "mission name" (e.g., CRS-n, or AsiaSat-n, etc.), SpaceX has always been rather clear that any testing they might do on an expended (trash, if not otherwise used) booster stage—i.e. a suborbital test flight—is in no way a part of the main mission. This is quite different from almost all other previous spaceflights where, say, some national provider like the NASA or ESA or the US DOD owns every part of the launch and mission once the launch vehicle leaves the ground. SpaceX is just selling a space transport service, and NASA etc. just has no say in what SpaceX does with their booster after a successful stage sep. Moreover, SpaceX is funding all of the incremental costs of any test flights they do.
Therefore, I don't believe it is appropriate to conflate the test flights SpaceX may or may not do on some launches with the primary mission name. They are, rather, merely tests that happen on a particular Falcon 9 v1.1 launch. I think this is especially true at the section header level. We just don't have source support that these tests are explicitly associated with the main mission of whomever SpaceX is selling each payload to. They are merely coincidental tests that SpaceX does following some uses of their expendable booster when they think they can advance their own development objectives for the reusable technology. This item seems a bit more important to me, and I really believe we give the reader the wrong impression with the mission names as primary descriptors for each controlled-descent test flight.
I'm not sure of the solution. Now that there have been so many of these controlled-descent test flights, about a half-dozen in the past 18 months, maybe adding a table summarizing the main info might be in order, and if we did that, maybe get rid of the header distinction between "ocean over water tests" and "floating platform attempted landings"; we could perhaps just show which type it is in a column of the table. Or maybe even (eventually, if not now) moving the details of flight tests (clearly notable since covered by so much media) to a separate article, since this article is a Wikipedia good article. This is what was done with the "SpaceShipTwo" vs. "VMS Eve" article. The details of flight tests are associated with a particular (notable) vehicle, but left out of the main article. In a similar way, perhaps we might want to consider leaving the detail out of the main technology development article (getting rather long in any case; its nearly 100,000 bytes) and put the test details in a separate (and non-"good article"). Or something else?

Those were my two main thoughts. What do you, or others reading this page, think about this? N2e (talk) 20:12, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for writing this up. After looking at the table of contents, it does seem to be a bit crowded at this point. As you suggested below, a table summarizing the information would probably be the best solution. There could be a summary that SpaceX has done both "ocean" and "floating platform" landing tests on this article, with a main article link that extensively covers both landing tests extensively. Besides, the headers are getting really messy on this article even with the faux-headers, so it would be best to do a split. Given the many flights planned and the recent announcement of the F9 v1.2 (I have no idea what they'll call it, but the upgraded performance Falcon) it's likely that the test flight section will only grow larger. It might be best to move immediately to a new page as the test flights ramp up, as delaying would only add to the work required to split the article.
If it was split, would it be worth including Grasshopper and F9v1.1 Dev-1 flights (about 13 flights in total) alongside the Falcon 9 post-mission tests to form a SpaceX prototype vehicle flight testing page? Or instead just a Falcon 9 booster post-mission, controlled-descent tests page?
For thoughts on the primary mission naming scheme on the section headers: SpaceX publishes mission names and names such as "Falcon 9 Flight 13". After looking at the article, it might give the wrong impression to refer to them by mission names. But at the same time, the issue I had with the older scheme (based on chronological order of test flights) was that it wasn't a common way to refer to the vehicles. SpaceX seems to publish both a mission name (Orbcomm OG2 Mission 1) and a vehicle name (Falcon 9 Flight 10). While there's no evidence that the mission is related to the test, it's common sense that the vehicle is related to the test. Because of that, I'd support modification of the headers to reflect the vehicle names.
Thanks for having this discussion and proposing methods of resolving article clutter.Appable (talk) 20:55, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Appable, all that sounds good to me. As mentioned, I really didn't like the mission name conflation; but agree that the Falcon 9 Flight 16 (for example) descriptor works. I'm also fine with splitting off the test flights now, as the detail is over-weighting this article, but still the info is notable.
Don't really care much whether it is the one scope (broader) or the other (narrower, just the high-altitude, high-velocity controlled-descent flights). However, perhaps for symmetry, both names might start with "Falcon 9"; e.g., Falcon 9 prototype vehicle flight testing rather than SpaceX prototype vehicle flight testing. But your alternative is also fine with me, too: Falcon 9 booster post-mission, controlled-descent tests. As further food for thought, we generally have very little news coverage of the Grasshopper and F9R Dev vehicle flights that have occurred in Texas; and I would think we won't get much when the New Mexico flights with F9R Dev2 get started, either. So pretty much all the info we have is already covered in the (relatively sparse) tables in the Grasshopper and F9R Dev articles. We have much more publically-released info on the booster controlled-descent tests that happen after some orbital missions.
I'll step back and let you re-make the changes to get away from the mission-name conflation issue that occured with the recent edits. You might want to do that first, here in this article, before doing any split. Let me know if you want more comment from me. N2e (talk) 01:55, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved all mission names to vehicle names. Looking at it with vehicle names, it seems like a split is very much needed to avoid overcrowding this article. Does anyone have an opinion on whether a split should be done, and what the scope of the split article should be? Appable (talk) 03:43, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd certainly support a split of the detailed summaries of each (obviously notable) test flights into a separate article. Thanks for making the changes to eliminate the impression that these privately-funded test flights were a part of the original "mission" flights, as opposed to merely happening subsequent to their lofting since that is what makes the booster available for testing on a descent and landing test. N2e (talk) 22:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hey appable, here's one more idea for an article name for the split article: Falcon 9 ocean booster landing tests. I set up a redirect with that name a long time ago, and I looked today and saw that name has already been getting a few tens of hits per day, with several hundred hits around the time of launches that have these tests on the agenda by SpaceX. Maybe that name would work better than the (also descriptive, but very long) Falcon 9 booster post-mission, controlled-descent tests. I'm fine with either one though N2e (talk) 11:27, 19 April 2015 (UTC).[reply]

Sources on the 7th controlled-descent test

Looks like SpaceX is discussing publically some parts of the 7th controlled-descent test on Falcon 9 Flight 17, which landed, (maybe a landing leg broke off; unclear), booster tipped over, and the tank broke open and a deflagration (kaboom) ensued. See the video SpaceX released on 15 April and is now in the article.

Other sources could be useful for improving the article. I'll start adding the sources I find here:

Article was split

For the record: Because this article was getting too large, and per the discussion in the Talk page section immediately above this one ("Discussing a couple of recent edits"), the article was split on 2015-04-23T23:30:12‎ by User:Appable, removing "34,456 Bytes", with the following edit comment by Appable: (Splitting article, this article was getting massive. See talk page of this article for details, additionally see the main article Falcon 9 ocean booster landing tests, which includes all of the removed content.)

Thanks to Appable for doing the work! N2e (talk) 03:42, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the summary in the talk page. If you'd like to read more on the split, there's a discussion on it right above. Thanks N2e and all the contributors for your work on this article and the comprehensive coverage of each landing test! Content there was great.
Incidentally, the lead section on the new main article Falcon 9 ocean booster landing tests sounds like a section header, and I personally don't think it shows notability as well as it should. I'll try to work on it over the next few days, but please add any content or streamline content so that it feels less obviously "split". Appable (talk) 03:48, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relevance of New Shepard launch

Apologies in advance as I'm a new editor, but I'm not sure the New Shepard launch, currently mentioned under History, is relevant to this article. Musk himself tweeted that the recovery of a booster from a suborbital flight is a much different goal than the recovery of the Falcon 9 orbital stages and it doesn't seem to affect SpaceX's program. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to put New Shepard under a "See Also" heading? Gnugnug (talk) 09:56, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I completely agree. At this point in time, the Blue Origin results are more relevant to the other suborbital tourism players like Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace. --IanOsgood (talk) 22:05, 2 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. While interesting to many, the Blue Origin test program is both for a very different purpose than the SpaceX orbital booster as well as unrelated to SpaceX' own program, as is perhaps obvious by a clean up edit I made and edit comment I left recently. It fits in Wikipedia. Just not this article. N2e (talk) 00:16, 3 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for confirming. I've made the change. Gnugnug (talk) 11:06, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What happens to Falcon 9 Flight 20's booster now?

After its landing, I'd imagine that Falcon 9 Flight 20's booster will now be torn down by SpaceX into its component parts for analysis, but that's just my guess. Do we have any authoritative/WP:RS information about what SpaceX's plans are for this? -- The Anome (talk) 12:26, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We seem to have our answer: [3]. It looks like it's going to be taken away from the landing site, refueled and static fired once, then dismantled for analysis. -- The Anome (talk) 22:17, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, in the main. I just added some prose to the article based on a source I found. One detail relative to what you said: I also listened to a recording of the 15-20 minute phone call teleconference that the press had with Elon Musk after the flight, and I don't believe anything was said about "dismantling" the F9 Flight 20 vehicle. I suspect what is more likely is that, after evaluating the overall structure in fine detail, some pieces from key areas of stress may be cut out or otherwise removed for destructive testing. I don't think that will happen to such an extent that the vehicle is hugely disfigured; Musk seems to want the rocket to stand as a memorial or museum piece, since he thinks they will have quite a few stages to refly in the near future (not all future flights, but thinks likely to have stages back from most of them). Cheers. N2e (talk) 05:09, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

22 December 2015 post-landing news conference with Elon Musk

Here is a recording (link here) of the post-launch and post-landing teleconference with the press that Elon Musk gave, only an hour or two after the landing. The audio has quite a bit of wind noise on the microphone; but you can hear everything the reporters heard. That YouTube audio was posted yesterday, 23 Dec 2015.

Today, someone has helpfully posted a full transcript of the recording. (link here). If you use any of this as a primary source to details about the launch, flight, landing, future plans, etc., you should recognize this is a primary source, and while okay to use for verifiability purposes in some cases, is not considered as good a source for Wikipedia as a secondary source, something written on by a reliable source (like a newspaper, or one of the space media journalists). Cheers. N2e (talk) 10:32, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Disagreement between Intro and History

The first paragraph of the Introduction states that "the project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site in minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad" - this is at odds with the last paragraph of the History section which states that "by late 2014, SpaceX suspended or abandoned the plan to recover and reuse the Falcon 9 second stage". — Preceding unsigned comment added by JHarvey418 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good observation. We should probably clean up the text. But I think the contradiction dissapears when one recalls that this SpaceX technology development program is not specific to just the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The company has decided not to pursue Falcon 9 second-stage reuse; they absolutely have a long-term goal of second-stage reuse also as a part of this tech dev program. It would appear, based on company statements to date, that the second-stage reuse will get additional development effort when the MCT launch vehicle development get's underway with more than the skeleton crew of current design resources. Cheers. N2e (talk) 19:20, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Since this discussion in August, I've added some prose to endeavor to explicate the distinction: aiming for both stages long term, but the near-term Falcon 9 focus is only on the first stage. See what you think. N2e (talk) 05:38, 25 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maintenance + unmanned

High maintenance costs ruined the economics of the reusable Space Shuttle. But that was presumably at least partly due to the Shuttle having to be extra safe to carry people, so that Falcon 9 may perhaps avoid similar problems if its payloads stay unmanned. Are there no reliable sources discussing these matters, or if there are, shouldn't they appear in the article? (The Space Shuttle's problems meant that I assumed Falcon 9 was just hype until I worked out the above arguments, but if those arguments are correct I shouldn't have had to try to work them out for myself, and neither should our other readers).Tlhslobus (talk) 13:27, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, many parts of the Space Shuttle had to be stripped down and rebuilt with every flight. I believe SpaceX's aim is to be able to just refuel and relaunch, in the same way as an aircraft can be refueled and relaunched. Presumably they intend to use telemetry and non-destructive inspection techniques to avoid the need for a full maintenance inspection every time. SpaceX certainly intend to make the Falcon man-rated. -- The Anome (talk) 13:40, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. But the article currently has no mention at all of any of that in the Economic Issues and Technical Feasibility sections, which is where sceptical-but-open-to-persuasion readers like me are going to head, and not much of it elsewhere either, in the sense that it's perhaps implicit in Elon Musk's stated wishes, but an owner's wish list is not a very informative discussion of an issue. Indeed apart from wishful talk about hoping to colonize Mars (which we've been hearing for 50 years, despite the discovery of serious problems with solar flares, and cosmic rays, and the lack of any serious 'Artificial gravity' research programme on any of the various space stations), the article gives the impression that the serious plans are currently only for reusable rocket stages 1 and 2, which for a manned rocket is the equivalent of re-using the rockets but throwing away the manned bits, at least leaving the impression that any manned flight will be much less reusable than the Space Shuttle. Tlhslobus (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you're talking about Earth-bound missions, I believe that SpaceX intends to make all three components reusable: the first stage and second stage boosters, and the Dragon capsule, all landing vertically on their own rocket thrust. In the case of the Dragon, the landing rockets are also planned to serve as the attitude thrusters and launch escape mechanism. I can't find a reference for this at the moment, but they released a video last year (with a backing track by Muse, IIRC) showing an animation of how the whole process is intended to work. We really need to have this covered in more detail in the article. Mars I don't know about. -- The Anome (talk) 14:36, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct, in the long term, but not for the nearer term, with the Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy. Both are addressed in the article prose, but perhaps could be made more clear.
  1. In the lede it says "The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site in minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX long term goal is that both stages of their orbital launch vehicle will be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return.[1]". (emphasis added)
  2. In the History section, it says: "By late 2014, SpaceX suspended or abandoned the plan to recover and reuse the Falcon 9 second stage;[33] the additional mass of the required heat shield, landing gear, and low-powered landing engines would incur too great a performance penalty."
So, using all extant sources we have, SpaceX is still aiming for this, but in their MCT launch vehicle and in the Mars Colonial Transporter; not with the Falcon 9 nor Falcon Heavy. (however, with the new USAF contract to SpaceX earlier this month for SpaceX to develop an "upper stage" Raptor-like methane-fueled full-flow-staged-combustion prototype engine for the F9 and FH (see the article lede of Raptor (rocket engine) for a source), there is some speculation that a newer/newish second stage design for F9/FH might be able to be reusable, like Musk originally wanted, rather than like SpaceX decided to drop development resources from in late 2014, as shown in the quotation above. SpaceX, however, has neither confirmed nor denied any interest in even making a stage that would ever fly with the new USAF-1/3-paid-for prototype engine, nor publically said anything about making such a hypothetical stage reusable, contra the earlier late 2014 plans. YMMV.) Cheers. N2e (talk) 23:36, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the great info, The Anome. I wonder can that video be used as an acceptable RS, if it can be found? Also, do you by any chance know whether they say anything anywhere about returning to the Moon (or is it all just about Mars, with its far greater and possibly insuperable problems for the human body)?
Think I have seen a Elon Musk interview where on being asked this question he likened it to if you build an aircraft capable of crossing the Atlantic then are there going to be other people flying across the English Channel? That of course doesn't indicate that SpaceX have moon plans and may tend to indicate either they don't or they don't want to disclose any plans they have. Impression was he thinks it is inconceivable we would do Mars and not also have someone else doing something on the moon. crandles (talk) 17:12, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
He used boats rather than planes. See [4] crandles (talk) 23:22, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

First stage velocity at separation

It is probably time to revisit the article info on separation speeds before booster flyback. New, specific, info is available on the first two actual flights of the Falcon 9 full thrust version of the rocket is now available: Falcon 9 Flight 20 in Dec 2015 and Falcon 9 Flight 22, slated for launch later today. This source ( Klotz, Irene (2016-02-23). "Satellite operator SES says interested in used SpaceX rocket". Reuters. Retrieved 2016-02-24.) provides clear info on the Falcon 9 part of the question:

the rocket launching this week will be flying almost twice as fast as the one used in December - between 4,971- to 5,592 mph ( 8,000- to 9,000 kph), compared to 3,107 mph (5,000 kph) - by the time it separates from the second-stage motor, SpaceX said.

FWIW, the info on these velocities that is currently in the first paragraph of this article, is based on orginal forward-looking design information from several years ago in 2012 (and there was lengthy Talk page discussion getting to that...):

If the technology is used on a reusable Falcon 9 rocket, the first-stage separation would occur at a velocity of approximately 2.0 km/s (6,500 km/h; 4,100 mph; Mach 6) rather than the 3.4 km/s (11,000 km/h; 7,000 mph; Mach 10) for an expendable Falcon 9, to provide the residual fuel necessary for the deceleration and turnaround maneuver and the controlled descent and landing.

So the article will definitely need an update, and I don't have time to do it just now. N2e (talk) 12:57, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Flight 22 landing: Significance of extra push - consequently phrasing looks wrong

@N2e: There was an agreement that an extra push would be given to reduce time to reach final orbit. This came from second stage being run until depletion of fuel rather than shutting down when a target orbit was reached. This has very little, if any, effect on amount of fuel left in first stage. I don't mind this piece of information being given - Not quite sure where I would move it to. Seems well covered in Falcon_9_Flight_22 and not sure it needs to be here as well. However, I do object to phrasing that indicates that because of the extra push there is little fuel left to land the first stage. Far, far, more important is that the payload was heavy for being lifted to GTO. Unless you have or there is a reference indicating such importance, such a level of importance should not be implied by the article. So the phrasing should reflect this. If other editors want to insist on including mention of the extra push fine but for accuracy don't phrase to indicate this is primary reason for little fuel being left to land first stage. Can we please change the phrasing or remove it? crandles (talk) 14:12, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I get your two points. I don't have time to relook a the sources just now, but in the long news conference by the SES executive Halliwell I recall him mentioning the extra push, and impact on the probability that SpaceX successfully landing the first stage would go down. It seemed to me, as I heard that and other sources, that given SpaceX's loss of flight 19, and subsequent 6 or so month delay to the return-to-flight, it pushed SES back a bunch, and thus reduced SES near-term revenue statements (SES were going public on that in securities regulation announcements), and since SES is a really good (though not exclusive) SpaceX customer, SpaceX decided to "take one for the customer" and burn harder/longer, and reduce landing probability of the experimental controlled-descent first stage. No problem; all good business. But the push or extra burn or whatever was mentioned by Halliwell, and picked up by space media who covered that. So I think the extra push should not be left out of the article. On your second point, I have not seen sources that clarify how much of the extra push was first stage vs. second stage. Given the extra push was talked about, and sourced, it is not at all clear that just because the second stage did a "burn to (safe) depletion" rather than a "burn to target orbit", then that would mean the first stage didn't give some extra push also, and thus use up some of the propellant that would have been part of its return and landing prop margin; SpaceX clearly decided to do a special 3-engine landing burn on flight 22, never before even tested, in order to have a (small probability) shot at bringing the thing in and landing it. N2e (talk) 18:55, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree with crandles on this edit which improves the reader's understanding that mass and speed are the key factors in setting practical limits to booster recovery. Here we had a rocket which couldn't reduce its re-entry velocity as much as would be feasible on a LEO Dragon launch, for example. That being said, I would assume that the negotiated supersynchronous trajectory had an impact on the first stage as well as the second stage, taking both of them to their limits? However we are surely going down the sweet and sour path of WP:OR... This case was undoubtedly a great way to push the envelope on what these Falcons can withstand! — JFG talk 07:26, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looking again at the ref http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/24/falcon-9-rocket-to-give-ses-9-telecom-satellite-an-extra-boost/] "Halliwell said SES’s contract with SpaceX called for the rocket to deploy SES 9 into a “sub-synchronous” transfer orbit with an apogee around 16,155 miles (26,000 kilometers) in altitude. ... The change in the Falcon 9’s launch profile will put SES 9 into an initial orbit with an apogee approximately 24,419 miles (39,300 kilometers) above Earth." 26000km to 39300km is quite a difference that doesn't seem likely to come from just a couple of extra seconds burn from the second stage. This makes it seem to have a more significant effect than I was thinking when reading the change was just a slightly longer burn on the second stage. Would still suggest payload weight "heavier than the Falcon 9 rocket’s advertised lift capacity to geosynchronous transfer orbit" is likely a major effect but without reference we shouldn't indicate which is more important. Can we find a wording that suggests both are factors without indicating one is more important than the other? Perhaps I will have a go at adding a little more. Hope bit added serves. crandles (talk) 11:05, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Sure, give it a go. That was why I suggested we beat it around on the Talk page for a bit. Just was a shame to lose that aspect of the extra energy added for movement of the trajectory to a higher energy orbit, and one that was beyond what the contract called for. N2e (talk) 02:23, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Source

This video of Musk news conference following the second successful landing of a booster (first one was Dec 2015, on land), and the first one on a droneship, explains a bit about the test philosophy, and why do it on an active orbital mission rather than as most government-funded missions to date where the test flight itself would be a single planned dedicated mission. Musk Discusses CRS-8 Successes with Media, 8 April 2016, at 19:20-21:50. Would be a good source to potentially improve the article. N2e (talk) 02:44, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fairing

SpaceX is working on fairing reusability. I may add a mention of that. --Pmsyyz (talk) 16:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And they achieved a recovery on the 30 March 2017 launch. It is now mentioned in the article, and sourced. N2e (talk) 04:55, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deeper and more analytical secondary sources

Now that it's been over a day since the successful launch and flight of a "flight-proven" booster stage, the deeper and more serious pieces of space media journalism are being posted.

Rename article?

Given that the system has now been used for a real mission, is it perhaps time to rename this article to "SpaceX reusable launch system"? Certainly, development is continuing, as SpaceX works to reduce costs and turnaround times, and to make even more parts of the system resusable, but the system is now no longer purely in an R&D phase; it exists, and is operational. -- The Anome (talk) 09:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

SpaceX has indeed reached a key milestone in their drive towards full reusability, but that's not a reason to rename this article, which documents their R&D process. The resulting operational system is described at Falcon 9 Full Thrust, Falcon 9 Block 5, Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship, Landing Zone 1, SpaceX and probably other pages. Meanwhile R&D activities continue: half a fairing was recovered, there is work to enable fast "refuel and relaunch" turnaround, and just this weekend Musk mused about trying to enable recovery of the second stage. Plus some ITS work would come here too. All in all, more reasons to keep the page as a description of reusability R&D efforts. — JFG talk 02:25, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with JFG. This article is an encyclopedic description of the overall development program to achieve this significant advancement in human technology. Took years, broad vision, and the overall technology advancement here is much larger than any particular reusable launch system. This is about a set of multiple technologies--in engines; materials science; guidance, navigation and control; hypersonic ==> subsonic atmospheric flight controls; business; private incentives; competition; interdisciplanary systems development; etc.--being used on multiple reusable launch systems: Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and the Interplanetary Transport System. Not even all of the technologies used/tried/engineered/iterated and experimented with even made it to the final system in use in F9 today, let alone what will be developed for the next-generation interplanetary launch vehicles and spacecraft.
Having said that, there may one day be room (or need) for an article on some particular current reusable launch system, that would not have all the encyclopedic breadth of this article. That's fine, when the need arises. But this article's scope would be misrepresented by re-titling it as proposed. N2e (talk) 19:53, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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"Starship hopper"?

There is a section heading in the article now entitled "Starship hopper." Do we have a source where SpaceX is calling the first test article "Starship hopper"? If not, is is a widely used name such that it might be sort of a "common name" for it?

I've seen the name used somewhere... but I've also seen media calling it the "BFR dev ship", a "hopper", the "BFH", the "BFWT" (water tank, 'cause that's what it was thought to be as build began in Dec 2018 in what later became the Boca Chica Spaceshipyard), etc. Descriptively, and not trying to use any one particular cute name, it is simply just the Starship test flight rocket. . In other words, not sure Wikipedia should be using something that isn't a common name, nor a name SpaceX is calling it. Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:39, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Second stage as spaceship

The "Second-stage reuse" section of the article currently states an, "integrated second-stage-with-spaceship design [...] has not been commonly used in previous launch vehicles." But see RM-81 Agena. The final launch was in 1987; 365 were flown. Does that flight history somehow fail to qualify Agena as having been "commonly used?" (sdsds - talk) 06:15, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw this question sdsds. Is a good one. I had time only to skim that Wikipedia article prose, but not go after the sources. Do you think there is a good source anywhere that does a solid job explicating just how the Agena might be thought to have been an "integrated second-stage-with-spaceship design"? Otherwise, it seems a bit like Agena, and maybe even a few of the Chinese second stages being used today, are more "integrated second-stage-with-attached satellite" designs. But even that might be worth mentioning to improve this article if we could find sources that are descriptive of some sort of integrated-second-stage designs in contrast to the BFR design integrated reusable spaceship designs. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks N2e your thinking on this is good. Musk (the cited source) pretty clearly knows "spaceship" can refer to both a human-carrying and a satellite- or probe-carrying vehicle, but he might mean us in this context to be thinking of human-carrying vehicles where (to my knowledge) nothing quite like what's envisioned for BFS was ever "commonly used." (Or ever used at all?)
I'm sure there are sources we could cite describing Agena (and the others you mention) as being integrated second-stage and payload vehicles but in the context of Musk's assertion, mentioning that what he said might be misconstrued would probably be out of place! (sdsds - talk) 02:20, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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