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The Downlink The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
1 November 2021 — 31 December 2023
Special Issue 1
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
Special Announcement
  • The Downlink's first run was from December 2010 to March 2011, after which it was revived from October 2020 to October 2021. The second revival (volume 3 onwards) will mostly continue with the second volume's style. Depending on how many editors participate during and following volume 3, volume 4 onwards may see significant changes to format and style.
This special issue is intended to cover the most important changes from the last issue to 31 December 2023. The next special issue will be published some time in January 2025. After that, special issues will only be published for significant events (decided by consensus at The Downlink talk page). Due to the file size of this issue, it has not been sent out. As the next special issue is likely to also be very large, it will also not be sent out.
In the News

2021

  • The DART mission was launched on 24 November. It successfully impacted Dimorphos on 26 September 2022.
  • The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December. An international partnership between NASA, ESA, and CSA, it reached its destination in January 2022. Its first image was made public on 11 July 2022.

2022

2023

  • The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer was launched on 14 April.
  • Starship was launched for the first time on 20 April. Several engines on the booster failed, ending the mission before stage separation.
  • A new record for largest number of people in space (20) was set on 25 May, with eleven people on the ISS, three on Tiangong, and six on VSS Unity.
  • A new record for largest number of people in orbit (17) was set on 30 May, with six people on Tiangong and eleven on the ISS.
  • The ESA's Euclid telescope on 1 July by a Falcon 9.
  • EchoStar XXIV was launched on 29 July, becoming the heaviest geostationary satellite ever launched at 9 tonnes (8.9 long tons; 9.9 short tons).
  • OSIRIS-REx successfully returned samples collected from Bennu on 24 September.
  • NASA's Psyche spacecraft was launched on 13 October on board a Falcon Heavy launch vehicle.
  • Dinkinesh was revealed to be a binary pair of asteroids on 1 November following a flyby by the Lucy spacecraft.
  • Starship flight test 2 successfully saw Starship reach space, but the first stage exploded shortly after separation and the second stage was lost after eight minutes.
  • The United States broke the record for most launches by a nation (108). The record was previously held by the Soviet Union since 1982.
Featured Content

2021

2022

2023

Article of the Month
Article for November 2024. Decision was made unilaterally.

The Apollo 15 postal covers incident, a 1972 NASA scandal, involved the astronauts of Apollo 15, who carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers into space and to the Moon's surface on the Lunar Module Falcon. Some of the envelopes were sold at high prices by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger, and are known as "Sieger covers". The crew of Apollo 15—David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin—agreed to take payments for carrying the covers; though they returned the money, they were reprimanded by NASA. Amid much press coverage of the incident, the astronauts were called before a closed session of a Senate committee and never flew in space again.

Image of the Month
Image for November 2024. Decision was made unilaterally.
Apollo 4 Liftoff

The Apollo 4 unmanned mission lifts off from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. This was the first flight for the enormous Saturn V rocket that would eventually take humans to the Moon.

Members

New Members:

Number of active members: 175. Total number of members: 399.

Launches Since Previous Downlink
All times stated here are in UTC. See current lists: here, here, and here.
Due to the length of this issue, only a few launches are included here.

2021

  1. United States Falcon 9 Block 5 – DART (24 Nov. at 06:21:02) (success)
  2. European UnionUnited StatesCanada Ariane 5 – JWST (25 Dec. at 12:20) (success)

2022

  1. China Long March 2F – Shenzhou 14 (5 Jun. at 02:44:10) (success)
  2. India SSLV – EOS-02 (7 Aug. at 03:48) (launch failure)
  3. United States Space Launch System Block 1 – Artemis 1 (16 Nov. at 06:47:44) (success)

2023

  1. Iran Qaem 100 – Nahid-1 (4 Mar.) (launch failure)
  2. Japan H3-22S – ALOS-3 (7 Mar. at 01:37:55) (launch failure)
  3. European Union Ariane 5 – JUICE (14 Apr. at 12:14:29) (success)
  4. United States Starship – no payload (20 Apr. at 13:33:08) (launch failure)
  5. United States Starship – no payload (18 Nov. at 13:02:53) (launch failure)
  6. North Korea Chŏllima 1 – Malligyong-1 F3 (21 Nov. at 13:42:28) (success)
 Article Statistics
This data reflects values from the 31 December 2023.
Spaceflight articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 7 27 14 8 56
FL 2 4 4 10
FM 119 119
A 1 1
GA 11 28 36 54 129
B 18 86 175 174 2 455
C 46 133 492 585 15 1,271
Start 24 150 1,057 2,422 362 4,015
Stub 10 218 2,146 235 2,609
List 13 129 87 228 1 12 470
Category 1,147 1,147
Disambig 1 44 45
File 222 222
Portal 55 55
Project 109 109
Redirect 7 4 37 113 1,194 1,355
Template 1 1 504 506
Other 32 32
Assessed 126 570 2,121 5,736 3,427 626 12,606
Unassessed 1 1 3 268 273
Total 127 570 2,122 5,739 3,427 894 12,879
WikiWork factors (?) ω = 43,566 Ω = 4.92
Changes

Since October 2021, one top-importance article has been removed. 17 new high-importance, 40 new mid-importance, 282 new low-importance, and 572 other articles have been created, for a total of 910 new articles. 15 more articles have been promoted to Featured status, as have 16 images. One article has been promoted to Good Article status. There is also one A-Class article, 308 more B-Class articles, 93 fewer C-Class articles, 49 more Start-Class articles, 48 fewer Stub-Class articles, 13 more lists, and ten more files.

Since November 2022, there has been a cleanup effort. Although primarily focused on resolving issues with pages, it also results in pages being reassessed.

Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list.
Newsletter contributor: Ships&Space

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