Template talk:SpaceX

Other sites
Should there not be entries for the McGregor test site and the Hawthorne manufacturing plant and head office? -Arb. (talk) 17:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Neither are currently in the template. One of the two, McGregor, has a Wikipedia article now (since the time you asked your question).  You are welcome to be bold and add the other if you think it is both verifiable and notable.  N2e (talk) 19:06, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

And what about the proposed private launch site be it Brownsville, the Cape or any of the other possibilities. -Arb. (talk) 17:46, 21 November 2012 (UTC)


 * This has been added to the template since the time of your question 14 months ago. N2e (talk) 19:06, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Additional launch facility
NASA has selected SpaceX as the tenant for Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A, as sourced in that article. So that launch pad will need to be added to the template soon. However, it would probably be appropriate to leave it out of the template until such time as SpaceX and NASA have actually negotiated the lease contract, which is not yet complete.

This will be SpaceX' 3rd or 4th active launch site, depending on if it comes on line prior to the SpaceX private launch site, or after. We could speculate, but SpaceX has not announced the dates for either KSC 39-A or the Private Launch Site becoming operational. N2e (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

List of missions
I've removed individual flights from the "Missions" section of the template. SpaceX isn't a minor player in the space launch industry any more and think it's a mistake to try to list every spacecraft they've launched in a single template. We have the Dragon spaceflights template to cover Dragon so these don't need to be duplicated here, and I don't think that missions where they are providing launch services to a third-party spacecraft are relevant enough to the subject of SpaceX as a whole to justify inclusion - I don't think, for example, someone browsing the article on COTS would require a link to AsiaSat 6. Additionally SpaceX intends to compete with the EELVs, which have made 70+ launches in the last ten years. Assuming this happens, maintaining a list in the navbox over that length of time will make the navbox completely unusable. I think it would be better to abandon listing these missions in the navbox, provide a more prominent link to List of Falcon 9 launches and focus on maintaining that list. -- W.  D.   Graham  11:18, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I added the missions again a few months ago, they don't take that much space, especially as they have been broken down into three categories: ISS logistics, commercial satellites and scientific satellites. When it grows too large over the next five years, we could fork a separate template for just the missions (which would include the Dragons thus supersede that template). — JFG talk 14:24, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The missions should be split into a separate template. -- 65.94.42.131 (talk) 07:15, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Category rethinking...
Two of the spaceflight vehicles Musk introduced today do not cleanly fit in either only-a-launch-vehicle component category nor in the traditional spacecraft-only category.

Both the Interplanetary booster and the ITS tanker (which are two versions of the new ITS launch vehicle's second stage) are really integrated second-stages-cum-spacecraft. They aren't one, or the other, they are both a second stage of a LV and also a real-and-truly spacecraft.

Thus, they don't really quite fit in the existing categories of this template.

Ideas? N2e (talk) 00:41, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * We don't usually list rocket stages separately, so a single entry for ITS launch vehicle is enough in the Rockets section. Then we have two versions of the associated spacecraft: the Interplanetary Spaceship and the ITS tanker, which both need their own article down the line. I reassigned them accordingly and I think it's clear enough; hope you like it this way. — JFG talk 13:22, 28 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Yeah, JFG, that works for me. I like the changes you've made.


 * Still, the use of a long-duration spaceship (or a similarly designed full-blown orbital-capable tanker spacecraft) to perform the function of a second stage during Earthborne launches, with an extensive propellant-transfer phase in Earth orbit, has rather changed things. I suspect we will continue to find lots of areas where existing wiki-categories and schema don't quite work, and changes will be necessary.  N2e (talk) 12:30, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

SpaceX
The  template is getting huge. So I propose to split off the Falcon launches into a separate template

-- 65.94.42.131 (talk) 05:33, 1 July 2017 (UTC) — JFG talk 23:32, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Satellites?
Probably need a new row-section: Satellites. Microsat test sats 1a and 2a going up in a few days.

Also, likely need to represent the new SpaceX mongo constellation currently under development: Starlink (satellite constellation)  Cheers. N2e (talk) 16:23, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Microsats don't have an individual article, and are described in Starlink (satellite constellation). The template already pointed to this article, but under an earlier name. I have updated the link. — JFG talk 00:04, 19 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Yes, described in that article. I created redirect links for Tintin A and Tintin B, now that the sats are named.  Cheers. N2e (talk) 21:59, 22 February 2018 (UTC)