I'm unfamiliar with the process to update and publish a newsletter, but I think it would be good to at least acknowledge the changes that have occurred in WP:SPACEFLIGHT. Would there be any issues in starting this up again? Balon Greyjoy (talk) 08:09, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
Hello @Balon Greyjoy:, I have just updated the Downlink main page and it now shows a link to a new newsletter that I just created and is still in progress, also found at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Downlink/2020/November which I am planning to transclude it to the main Downlink page on 1 November 2020. Terasail[Talk] 13:29, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
@Terasail: Nice work! I just looked through your post and I'll try to make sense of it so I can similarly contribute to it in the future. As I understand it, the page you linked just references data pulled from other pages, and once you transclude it on November 1, it will keep that info permanently (and the updated data will go on future pages)? Balon Greyjoy (talk) 04:52, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
@Balon Greyjoy: When it is transcluded onto the WP:DNL page, I will start up a November issue, and the transclusion only means it will be displayed on the main page. The most current issue of the newsletter will always be transcluded onto the main page but old issues have their own pages so you can look back at them here. If you wish to have the October newsletter added to your talkpage on 1 November then add your username to Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Downlink/Recipients. Terasail[Talk] 17:52, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
@Terasail: Thanks for putting this together. Just to keep the Downlink from having a single point of failure, how is transclusion done? Specifically, how will you copy the data from the assessment table to be able data and not just linking to current numbers? Happy to leave this project to you, but I want to prevent missing issues if you are off Wikipedia at the time. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 05:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
@Balon Greyjoy: Well, I will substitute the wiki projects status tables onto the article page. Then on the main page on November, I will add {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Downlink/2020/October}}, to the current issue section. Which will display it. The subst: tags are already in html comments ready to be added on October 31. Terasail II[Talk] 11:36, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
GMT vs. UTC
Any objection if I change "All times stated here are in GMT." to "All times stated here are in UTC." 2020 in spaceflight and alike pages uses UTC? OkayKenji(talk • contribs) 03:18, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
Yep, I really should have labeled it with UTC Rather than GMT. Thanks for noticing. Terasail II[Talk] 11:36, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
Fun!
I am delighted in anything that adds to the espirit d'corps of our group.
I've been plugging away at 1960s satellites at my usual glacial pace (though I took today off and, of course, immediately started playing with WP!)
Hello! I have nominated a selected article to be included in the Vol-1 Issue-1 of The Downlink. It is an article about John Glenn:
John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921– December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space and the first to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a U.S. senator from Ohio. In 1998, he flew into space again at the age of 77.
Glenn resigned from NASA in January 1964. A member of the Democratic Party, Glenn was first elected to the Senate in 1974 and served for 24 years until January 1999. In 1998, at age 77, Glenn flew on Space Shuttle Discovery'sSTS-95 mission, making him the oldest person to enter Earth orbit, the only person to fly in both the Mercury and the Space Shuttle programs, and the first Member of Congress to visit space since Congressman Bill Nelson in 1986. Glenn, both the oldest and the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven, died at the age of 95 on December 8, 2016.
I have several suggestions for the list of launches. The first suggestion is that there be a flag icon next to each launch to denote where it launched. The second is that there be an indicator for crewed launches. And finally, colorize the date and time of the launch to denote whether the launch was successful (green), a failure (red), or a partial failure (yellow). Here's an example of last month's launches with these three suggestions:
@ZLEA: I have added a version of this into the November issue, thanks for the suggestion. I altered the colours for a tick and added an astronaut icon as changes from this. I might remove the uncrewed icons as it seems a bit too much, interested in other opinions. Terasail[Talk] 17:54, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
Terasail Looks good. Yeah, I think the uncrewed icons are a bit too much, most launches are uncrewed so it would make sense to specifically denote the crewed ones and not the uncrewed ones. One other suggestion I forgot is that you could use more specific rocket variants, expecially if the variants have their own articles. For example, the Falcon 9 launches are the Falcon 9 Block 5 variant, and the Soyuz launch is a Soyuz 2.1b. - ZLEAT\C 15:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
May we also add the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy USSF-44 to a November edition? QuicksmartTortoise513 (talk) 15:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Issue-2 article of the month
I have nominated an article of the month for the Vol-1 Issue-2 of The Downlink. It is an article about Apollo 12:
Apollo 12 would have attempted the first lunar landing had Apollo 11 failed, but after the success of the earlier mission, Apollo 12 was postponed by two months, and other Apollo missions also put on a more relaxed schedule. More time was allotted for geologic training in preparation for Apollo 12 than for Apollo 11, Conrad and Bean making several geology field trips in preparation for their mission. Apollo 12's spacecraft and launch vehicle were almost identical to Apollo 11's. One addition was a set of hammocks, designed to provide Conrad and Bean with a more comfortable resting arrangement inside the Lunar Module during their stay on the Moon.
Shortly after being launched on a rainy day at Kennedy Space Center, Apollo 12 was twice struck by lightning, causing instrumentation problems but little damage. The crew found that switching to the auxiliary power supply resolved the data relay problem, which helped save the mission. The outward journey to the Moon otherwise saw few problems. On November 19, Conrad and Bean achieved a precise landing at their expected location within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 robotic probe, which had landed on April 20, 1967. In making a pinpoint landing, they showed that NASA could plan future missions in the expectation that astronauts could land close to sites of scientific interest. Conrad and Bean carried the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, a group of nuclear-powered scientific instruments, as well as the first color television camera taken by an Apollo mission to the lunar surface, but transmission was lost after Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the Sun and its sensor was burned out. On the second of two moonwalks, they visited Surveyor 3 and removed parts for return to Earth.
Lunar Module Intrepid lifted off from the Moon on November 20 and docked with the command module, which subsequently traveled back to Earth. The Apollo 12 mission ended on November 24 with a splashdown.
In October (2020), I reformatted / reworked the articles: Progress MS-01 thru Progress MS-15 to “raise the bar” on those Wikipedia entries.
The References (citations) were a disaster, so I adopted a “centralized style” for citations under Reference section of those articles. This often eliminated multiple entries for the same reference.
I added “future” Progress MS-xx missions that are currently on the Roscosmos manifest. The typical Russian production schedule for Progress spacecraft requires 18-24 month notice before the planned flight date.
For example, at the Roscosmos August 2020 meetings all 2021 flights were assigned mission launch dates. Based on that authority (citation), Progress MS-16 thru Progress MS-19 articles were added and reviewed for 2021.
Unfortunately, Russia has disclosed minimal information on the Progress M-UM mission, outside of their August 2020 planning meeting. Currently scheduled for 6 September 2021 (after Progress MS-18). This mission will deliver the Prichal module using the Progress M-UM; a modified Progress spacecraft which will be used to deliver it to Russian Orbital Segment of ISS. Beatgr (talk) 20:42, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
Thanks you Beatgr your diligent work is much appreciated! — JFGtalk 16:04, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Why No lists of launches this month
Why No lists of previous and planned launches this month? They were my favourite bits of the downlink in our talk pages. - Rod57 (talk) 03:02, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
@Rod57: Because I was running late, and just wanted to send out a short version. It is a bit of a pain to make them lists, I had a few mins to make this months. So I excluded them, although I plan to continue them in the future. Terasail[✉️] 16:32, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
@Terasail: - Thanks, much appreciated. - Rod57 (talk) 11:17, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Delivered twice?
Did the bot push the August copy to everyone twice? - Indefensible (talk) 04:37, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
@Indefensible: This is an issue that happens sometimes with the MMS system. Terasail[✉️] 14:35, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, was just wondering if there was an update in the 2nd copy that I was missing. - Indefensible (talk) 17:01, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
No, it was the exact same message twice. Terasail[✉️] 21:54, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
Article statistics - How to find the actual articles (to work on them)
The grid summary is interesting, but I can't see how to find say the 9 articles that are high importance and only stub quality. The links at the top and on the left go to lists of all article types. It would save time to link eg. "stub" to Category:Stub-Class_spaceflight_articles but even this doesn't indicate which are high importance. Could link "high" to Category:High-importance_spaceflight_articles but likewise no way to filter by quality? Best could be to link the grid squared "9" to those 9 articles so we can find them and try to improve them.? - Ro57 (talk) 12:54, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
@Rod57: The table is from Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Assessment and on that page it has the links to the articles in the table. I can work on adding links to some of the classes, I initially remove all the links from the table since it would make a section of the downlink approximately 16k bytes, but I can add back the ones for the main classes (FA-stub). Terasail[✉️] 19:15, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
@Terasail: Thanks. The table (with links) at Wikipedia:WikiProject Spaceflight/Assessment seems ideal. Perhaps the table title "Spaceflight articles by quality and importance" in the Downlink report could link to it? - Rod57 (talk) 21:11, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
Releasing new issues
@Terasail: I noticed there haven't been any new issues of the Downlink since October; would you like someone (I volunteer) to take over the newsletter? Balon Greyjoy (talk) 13:05, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
@Balon Greyjoy Sure, I stopped since I started missing months and I couldn't really find time and lost interest in the project followed by taking a 5 month break from wikipedia. I can send out the newsletter if you do continue it. I hold no control over the project anymore and a new vision that you might bring to it would be nice. Terasail[✉️] 14:43, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
@Terasail: Is there a good guide for how to send out a mass newsletter? I'm unable to find one, and I would like to avoid having to coordinate for it to be sent out. Nothing against you; I just think it's good to improve the bus factor for a project. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 10:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
@Balon Greyjoy To send out a message you need the WP:MMS permission which usually requires a user to have made a few mass message requests before the right is granted. To request a new message to be sent you need the newsletter mailing list, and a page to be substituted onto every user's talk page. This is explained further at WP:MMSREQUEST. Hope this helps sorry for the slow response, I have not been able to access the wiki for the last week. Terasail[✉️] 20:23, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
Appreciate the help! Thanks! Balon Greyjoy (talk) 03:04, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
Re-(re-)starting the Downlink
It looks like the Downlink has been dead since October 2021. I intend to bring it back. Hopefully I can push out a special issue by the end of the year, after which it will be a quarterly publication (I don't believe that there's enough activity at the moment to justify a monthly publication). Depending on when I get mass-messaging rights, the first issue or two may be sent to a select group, rather than everyone on the mailing list.Ships&Space(Edits) 19:32, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
There have been some changes to the plan. Firstly, it will be a monthly publication; the current issue I'm working on has turned out to be very long. So long that it will be one of two special issues; the second will cover all of 2024. The first special issue should come out sometime in December 2024, and the second will come out in January 2025. Also, you don't need mass-messaging rights, so volume 3 issues should go out just fine. That said, Special Issue 1 is massive, and I'm not sure if it's too large to be put out. If it is, recipients will instead receive a notice that links to the page. Ships&Space(Edits) 18:48, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
Can confirm, that worked nicely. Thanks for bringing this back! To be honest, I'd totally forgotten about Downlink until I got the email notification earlier tonight about my talk page update. Glad to see its return! I'll be more than happy to chip in where I can in terms of writing, too! XFalcon2004x (talk) 03:55, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks! The next issue is January. You can use either of the special issues as a format/style guide if you want to. I'd prefer it if you'd leave the introduction alone, but if you feel like it needs something don't hesitate to change it: what matters is that, at the end, all the contributors agree that it's complete. Ships&Space(Edits) 23:18, 31 January 2025 (UTC)
Volume 3, issue 2
I have just created the February issue of the third volume. Please submit comments and suggestions in this section. Ships&Space(Edits) 01:37, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
Not for the February issue, for obvious reasons, but I would make sure to include both lunar landers (IM-2 and Blue Ghost) in the March edition. Also for note, especially when discussing the return of Crew-9 from the station, I heavily encourage you to avoid the usage of the word "stranded" at any point, if it comes into the newsletter (again, for March, not February.). Good newsletter as a whole for last month, though! Totally just want to throw my notes in here now before I forget, though (because I know myself and it will happen) XFalcon2004x (talk) 01:56, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
I am finally working on the Timeline_of_spaceflight again, and this is the latest page I've gotten up to snuff.:) I got the first three articles to FL, and I did 1953, 1954, and 1955. User:Sotakarhu did a lot of the table work for 1956.
On to 1957! --Neopeius (talk) 19:07, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
(P.S. just put this here since this work may be of interest to Project Spaceflight folk) --Neopeius (talk) 19:07, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
Template for The Downlink
Hi all! This is a notice that I created (and tested) a template for The Downlinkhere. The documentation should cover everything, but feel free to ask me questions on my talk page or here. Ships&Space(Edits) 00:24, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
