Talk:SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1

Article name
I didn't mind the change from Flight 2 to CTOS Flight 1, but Dragon C1? SpaceX themselves never call it that. And from the source it looks like it's just the name of the payload spacecraft. I think it should be reverted back TMV943 (talk) 23:54, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * "it looks like it's just the name of the payload spacecraft" - so why shouldn't that be the name of an article about said spacecraft? -- G W … 02:39, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The article isn't about the spacecraft, it's about the mission. The spacecraft already has it's own article, if there's anything special to note about the "C1" specifically, it could be noted as a section there, but for this article, we should go with a mission name SpaceX or NASA use TMV943 (talk) 05:59, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Reading the arguments of both previous commenters, I tend to agree with TMV943: it is a mission that is unique, not really the spacecraft capsule alone. The mission, of course, will necessarily cover both the spacecraft capsule (which of course has substantial new instrumentation that was not on the privious capsule flight) as well as the entire Falcon 9 launcher system. Thus, at this point, I would support an article name change more in line with the mission, rather than merely the capsule. Cheers. N2e (talk) 06:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The article name needs to be change. This is an article on the mission, not the vehicle. There will be other missions with that vehicle. --RadioFan (talk) 13:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Definitely agree with the name change. Thanks RadioFan. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:13, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And where will we put the first OSC COTS Demo Flight? -- G W … 10:49, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * We'll deal with that when a name is settled on for that mission. Nomenclature is a bit more all over the place with this program than we've been used to with previous (NASA) programs. I've seen COTS Demo Flight 1 called a dozen different things in the press and half a dozen things in SpaceX press releases over the years. It took until the press kit was available for this flight this time, I'm thinking it wont take as long next time.--RadioFan (talk) 12:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah I think the title is a bit ambiguous too: what would we call those demo flights by other spacecrafts under the COTS program (e.g. Cygnus)? How about "Dragon COTS Demo Flight 1" or "SpaceX COTS Flight 1"? Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 05:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I think including Dragon in the title would be a good idea. That would also help to allay some of my other concerns over the current title. -- G W … 13:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not up to us to determine the title, it's up to SpaceX and then to the media in how they use the mission title most often. SpaceX refers to it as "COTS Demonstration Flight 1" it's press releases. There is no consistent other name the press (COTS-1 comes close but hasn't been used enough in what I've been reading to push it to the point that we should consider it as a title for this article). If there are titles which include Dragon in them, they can be made redirects to this article.--RadioFan (talk) 17:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Being that Orbital will also have COTS demo flights it may make sense for the official title to end up as "SpaceX COTS Demonstration Flight 1". Of course, the title can be changed once Orbital gets closer to launching their first Taurus II/Cygnus vehicle. --StuffOfInterest (talk) 18:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ...and once Orbital settles on a mission name. NASA is treating COTS as a program and I've heard rumblings that missions may be numbered sequentially within that program rather than within each company. E.g. if Orbital were to launch a similar mission tomorrow, it would be COTS Demo Flight 2 rather than Orbital COTS Demo Flight 1. Dont know if I believe that but it could happen.--RadioFan (talk) 21:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's best for now just to wait and see how NASA handles this TMV943 (talk) 23:18, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Support tower fire at launch
Pics on SpaceflightNow.com showed a fire about midway up the launch tower lasting for a few seconds at the start of the launch. Appears to me to have been some burning fuel - possibly from fuelling line. It'll be interesting to see what SpaceX has to say about it. --71.214.211.240 (talk) 18:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Elon Musk addressed this in the news conference. He said that, of course, they would have to do full analysis, check the hardware at the launch pad, etc. But he did offer that it was likely an incomplete closure of a checkvalve on the launch-side fueling line that would have allowed some RP-1 out into the air which was then ignited by the rocket exhaust. N2e (talk) 06:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

article quality/classification
Just wanted to compliment whoever rated this article. Generally, it's spot on. This isn't quite a high importance article but definitely meets criteria for a mid importance one. I do wonder if it's moved beyond start quality yet and if not, what is missing to get it to the next level?--RadioFan (talk) 21:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)


 * One thought, per discussion in the section below, we probably ought to clean up the stubiness of the section on nanosat payloads, and ensure the article reflects the complete mission, not merely the (admittedly, most significant) Dragon capsule orbit, control and re-entry. This will likely require a bit of copy editing to the entire article, as well as more completeness in the nanosat section (I know Musk talked about the nanosats in the post-recovery news conference, but I don't have a source handy. I think he said they launched nine nanosats, mostly freebies, got paid for one of them...) Cheers. N2e (talk) 18:52, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Space cheese
Is it worth mentioning the unusual payload in the Dragon capsule? David Bailey (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Specifically mentioning the cheese, I dont think so. But a section on the items that were flown would be appropriate. I've read about a cube sat (already in the article) and some PR items such as a thousand+ mission patches that were flown. This cheese stunt would fall into that PR category I would think but it's not worth much of a highlight in the article in my opinion.--RadioFan (talk) 03:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

1st stage
What happened to the first stage. NASA's Freedom Star solid rocket booster recovery ship was also working to recover the Falcon 9's first stage from the Atlantic. Apparently the recovery did not succeed but I can't find a reliable source for this info. Does anyone know more? Shouldn't this be mentionned in the article? 192.196.142.21 (talk) 14:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I watched the post-launch and post-Dragon-recovery news conference. Musk addressed this question explicitly. The first stage did not survive re-entry; but they collected a lot of data that should help them make incremental progress with each mission.


 * I'm sure you can find a video of the news conference posted somewhere online. More importantly, for the article, I'm highly confident that one or more of the space media folks will have covered it in print or online. One website that was putting links up to nearly every media mention on the Falcon 9/Dragon C1 mission was Space Nucleus; you could likely look at articles by researching from there on the day of the launch and a couple of days thereafter. Cheers. N2e (talk) 21:36, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Do we really need a table?
The table in this article listing the launch attempt seems unnecessary. There were only two attempts; one failed, and one didn't. The paragraph which addresses the failed attempt seems sufficient; the only thing missing is a mention about the "weather go %" being 80%. Mlm42 (talk) 20:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This table is on all Shuttle missions where attempt information is available. SpaceX missions should be no different. Scrubs, holds and delays and the reason for them is history that should be maintained and can be well sourced. Turnaround times in particular are note worthy and tell the story here. Look at the turnaround time on the latest scrub for STS-133 for example.--RadioFan (talk) 05:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Lack of essential information
Two important pieces of information are missing. The first one is the configuration of the vehicle while in orbit. Normally the Dragon is made of a capsule and of a cylindrical structure, the trunk. I think that for this flight they could have flown the capsule only, without the trunk, this would be good to know. The mission patch seems to suggest that the capsule flew alone. The second information is the type of reentry which has been performed, was it a ballistic entry, ie lift = 0 and higher g loads, or was the propulsion of the capsule used for a lifting entry and reduce the g loads ? 92.131.161.205 (talk) 08:34, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If you have sources for any of this information, it definitely should be added. There hasn't been as much detailed technical information available about this launch as we are used to getting on shuttle missions for example. Is that simply because SpaceX is focused on high level press release type information at this point and doesn't have conduits set up yet to provide these kinds of details? Is it because no one has asked for this kind of information? I dont know. Also, I'm not getting the point you are trying to make about the mission patch. Are you suggesting that it should be removed from the article?--RadioFan (talk) 14:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)


 * In the launch video Dragon is seen to separate from the trunk seconds after second stage shutdown. As for the reentry, per the press kit it's a lifting reentry controlled by Draco (thruster) firings. Elon stated in the post-flight news conference that the Angle of Attack was 12 degrees with very little dispersion. AKA Dragon did perform a lifting reentry, and the Draco firings during reentry would have had to have worked for it to land only 800m off the target point. 99.64.32.6 (talk) 08:21, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Space and Missile Defense Command - Operational Nanosatellite Effect
This article needs more coverage on the US Army SMDC-ONE (Space and Missile Defense Command - Operational Nanosatellite Effect) nanosatellite. 

65.93.12.93 (talk) 10:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Is there a reason why you aren't adding this information?--RadioFan (talk) 20:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know about the anon editor, but I agree with the proposal. I'll make an initial attempt at adding some stub items. N2e (talk) 18:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

What happened to the upper stage?
What happened to the upper stage? We know from the source cited in the article that it achieved an altitude (apoapsis) of 11,000 km, as part of a set of secondary objectives for the mission to test second-stage reignition, etc. So the question relevant to article improvement, as well as (potentially) to the history of space debris, is:
 * Is the UpperStage/MerlinVacuumEngine still in orbit?
 * Is it yet another derelict "artificial satellite" that will stay in orbit for years/decades?

Anyone know of public information on this that we could use to improve the article? Cheers. N2e (talk) 15:13, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

What happened to Oribital Sciences
What about the Orbital Sciences Taurus II/Cygnus COTS Demo flights? Why is this assumed to be a SpaceX project instead of a NASA initiative that involves 2 players? The Cygnus is [currently] scheduled to launch Q2 2012. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.96.144 (talk) 18:43, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Dragon on display at SpaceX HQ
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/8234368600/ --Craigboy (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

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Requested move 28 June 2020

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved   ~ Amkgp  💬  15:12, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

– WP:CONCISE, since the current title is too WP:PRECISE. Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 10:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC) —Relisted. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
 * SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1 → SpaceX COTS-1
 * SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 2 → SpaceX COTS-2
 * Oppose: no evidence that reliable sources refer to these missions by the proposed names. Rosbif73 (talk) 18:53, 9 July 2020 (UTC)