Talk:Comparison of mid-heavy lift launch systems

Badly defined
This article is very badly defined. The article specifies "4 to 9 metric tons satellites", but fails to specify an orbit. The inclusion of rockets that can carry between these masses to any orbit causes ambiguity. A rocket that can place 9 tonnes directly into GSO would be considered extremely heavy, whereas the same mass to a suborbital trajectory would be categorised differently. I propose that this article be discontinued in favour of the proposals outlined on Talk:Comparison of heavy lift launch systems. I will start to create the remaining pages outlined today, and I would strongly suggest merging this into one of the articles in the original proposal. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 11:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * 4 to 9 metric tons satellites on GTO (which I just modified to 3 to 9 metric tons satellites on GTO. That is very different of 20 tons LEO, that's why I proposed this new page. Proton, Zenit (for example) could not be listed amoung heavy lift launch systems --Laurent Simon (talk) 13:38, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

partly in french
just because I had not the time to transltate all immediately --Laurent Simon (talk) 15:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Retired launch systems
Would it be useful to add a few examples from retired launch systems? Titan III, perhaps? (sdsds - talk) 23:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Year of first launch
Hello, Could you add a "Year of first launch" column please? It would be much more useful than the actual "Status" value. Yann (talk) 18:04, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Delta IV
Why is the following comment included for the Delta IV: "Launched Eutelsat W5, but now retired from international competition"? It is still operational, so shouldn't that be the listing? -- G W … 18:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I have removed the statement. -- G W … 08:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Reliable-source for the "mid-heavy lift" definition?
The existing scope of this page, as defined in the article lede, is: "launch systems which are submitted to international competition and able to launch 3,000 to 9,000 kilogram satellites to a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO)."

Does anyone have a reliable source for this defintion of "mid-heavy lift launch systems"? As the article is currently written it appears to be a definition that is pretty much original research and would violate the Wikipedia policy against synthesis. Moreover, without a reliable source for the definition, it is not clear that this article should exist at all. After all, why not merge it with Comparison of medium lift launch systems (defined as 2,000 to 20,000 kg to LEO) since 20,000 kg to LEO is about equivalent Delta-V for getting 9,000 kg to GTO? See, for example, the (still largely unsourced for the definitional claims) lede of the Comparison of heavy lift launch systems article. N2e (talk) 18:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think all of the launch vehicle lists should be measured with the same criteria - LEO or GTO, but not interchange between the two as this leads to the current situation. As most of the lists already implement LEO (only mid-heavy uses GTO) I propose to use LEO. If we look at the current rockets in the mid-heavy list they are all in the 10-20 mt LEO range, so combining this with the current limits of >2mt for medium, >20mt for heavy, >50mt for super-heavy we get with LEO-only: small (<2mt), medium (2-10mt), mid-heavy (10-20mt), heavy (20-50mt), super-heavy (>50mt). Alinor (talk) 08:53, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm.. I don't fully understand the reasons for making this page (the LEO vs. GTO confuses me, I guess), but I couldn't find any non-Wikipedia related sources that use the term "mid-heavy lift launch system". A Google search comes up empty handed.. so is this just a term made up by Wikipedia editors? If so, then something probably needs to change.. Mlm42 (talk) 20:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Given your search, and others' inability to find a good source for this distinction, I recommend you consider making a proposal to merge this article into the medium-lift category. That ought to get all interested parties to the table for the discussion, and then we either do or do not achieve a consensus for the merge.  My view will be:  if it isn't a sourced definition, then it is a distinction that should not be made up and maintained by Wikipedia.  N2e (talk) 05:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So, do you suggest that split launchers in two articles: "Super Heavy Lift" and "Not Super Heavy Lift"? Alinor (talk) 14:55, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * See also here. Alinor (talk) 14:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Just as example - this gives some hits. Alinor (talk) 14:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't really have a strong view as to how to do it. But given that the lists are sortable, I do think that we need fewer comparison lists than we now have.  Given that super-heavy has a verifiable source, I think that ought to stay separate.  Small-lift seems a useful categorization just to keep the small stuff off of the lists of the more economically important rockets.  We currently have three lists in the middle range (medium, mid-heavy and heavy):  how 'bout combining them into a single list???  Something like Comparison of medium- and heavy-lift launch systems?  If that meets with a lack of consensus, I'd be happy to start with just dumping the "mid-heavy" comparison if that could get us a consensus.  Thoughts?  N2e (talk) 01:48, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed, there appear to be five separate articles here, none of which is very big at all. Combining them all into a single List of launch systems would create an article on the larger side of normal, but not too large or unweildy. Then we could separate it into sections defined by numbers, rather than worrying about defining terms like "medium-lift", "small-lift", etc. Consider for example the guideline Article size, which says it's okay to leave a large list in one page, rather than splitting it into unnatural smaller lists. Mlm42 (talk) 02:42, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * While we're at it, I guess we could also merge in List of orbital launch systems (which seems redundant at the moment anyway). Mlm42 (talk) 02:49, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Currently the small/medium/etc. are arranged by capacity and the List of orbital launch systems has sections for each country (like many other missile, etc. articles). Combining in a sortable columns table would remove the capability to sort "medium lift by country" - it would be either "by capacity (regardless of country)" or "by country (regardless of capacity)".
 * I don't agree to combine everything in a single list article (unless it's divided in sections, but then we have the same problem with their borders) - the small and medium categories already include too many entries. Merging the three middle ones (medium, medium-to-heavy, heavy) also causes similar trouble, not to mention that merged-article name and border definitions will have the same problem as the current articles.
 * The issue here is that for individual launchers there are many sources applying some label such as "Rocket XXX, the heavy launcher of company/country YYY" - without referring to or explaining any definition of the label (e.g. "It's heavy lift, because it's in the range between X and Y LEO uplift"). We could replicate this at Wikipedia - make lists such as "list of launchers labeled 'medium' by sources", but the application of these labels is inconsistent - different sources give different labels to rockets with same capacity or give "smaller" label (than another source about another rocket) to rocket with bigger capacity. If we follow this inconsistent labeling the lists will become meaningless and confusing to the readers. This inconsistency prevents us from compiling the lists without stating some ranges "between X and Y LEO uplift". I agree that it's better if these ranges are sourced, but so far we have source only for the heavy/super-heavy border. Alinor (talk) 12:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

ARIANE 5 retired ?
Ariane 5 "G" is retired since 2009 but the new Ariane 5 "ECA" was lauched several time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.41.115.228 (talk) 09:54, 19 July 2011 (UTC)