This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Infobox spaceflight template. |
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I feel like the human aspect of these missions always get lost in the details. It would be nice to at least have the mission leader's name mentioned in the infobox; would it be a controversial inclusion? I feel like the name of the Principal Investigator of a mission is probably the most important human behind these sorts of spaceflights. Maybe it would be great to have these people at least mentioned in the infobox as an important name associated with each of these missions. Philip Terry Graham 10:27, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
the holder of an independent grant administered by a university and the lead researcher for the grant project, usually in the sciences, such as a laboratory study or a clinical trial.That usually isn't the case for space probes, which are directly implemented as government programs; some other name would have to be found. (Maybe Mission leader would be OK.)
Normally, the farthest distance uses a base word of Apo- so an Apogee is for the farthest distance from the Earth. However, for sun orbits it is called Aphelion but the "o" is missing due to Greek rules. So there is an exception for only that one case where the apsis is helion.
Ranger 3 is an example where the infobox misspells it as "Apohelion". This occurs due to date9 |label9 in the infobox so I am unsure if an If Else can be used for a label. --Frmorrison (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
Most updates get published on Twitter these days. Nergaal (talk) 15:31, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
Does anyone know a way to left align text in the instrument field (or Template:Infobox spaceflight/Instruments subtemplate)? The forced center align is more than a little strange and unsightly. I would change the default behaviour myself to make other alignments a parametered thing myself, but wanted to drop a line here if anyone had a better idea. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:07, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Looking at the Parker Solar Probe, comparing its characteristic energy planned maximum C3 to recent missions, I'd like to propose this be added as an optional parameter to be displayed in the infobox. This parameter is a noteworthy one which describes the mission very well. Mars orbital missions are on the order of 14-15 km2/s2, Apollo translunar injection was on the order of -2, and the SLS is planned for about 110. This parameter is very descriptive of the mission and the vehicle used to lift it. It is also readily available for many missions. Thoughts?--MadeYourReadThis (talk) 19:29, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
As Apollo 15, 16 and 17 entailed crewed lunar rovers, it may be appropriate to add a "rover" argument to this template, differentiating them from spacecraft, which "fly" through outer space, as opposed to "driving" through it on a land-body. This is a small point, but the Apollo rovers seem to be a very special case. There is room for discussion and pushback here. In a definite sense, any vehicle moving through outer space may be construed as a "spacecraft". Still, the flying/roving distinction among craft has several distinguishing examples. I therefore request the addition of such an argument in the template following this talk post, which would then be implemented on the Apollo 15-17 articles.MinnesotanUser (talk) 03:57, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Moreover upon quick review, the "rover" argument could be usefully applied to the various robotic-rover articles throughout the encyclopedia, which employ the "infobox spaceflight" template. This strengthens the point!MinnesotanUser (talk) 04:47, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
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Please change this template to include a "rover" argument, probably just below the "spacecraft" argument. Several objects sent to outer space are better classified as rovers than as spacecraft, and such a change would be an improvement.
What follows is an enhancement of the points just made on the template's talk page. The addition of a "rover" argument to the present template would add value to the encyclopedia, distinguishing ground-craft from space-borne craft. In particular, this argument could be usefully applied to the crewed lunar rovers of Apollo 15-17, and furthermore applied to the various robotic craft.
For reiteration via this formal request, my recent thoughts on same are now repeated, below:
As Apollo 15, 16 and 17 entailed crewed lunar rovers, it may be appropriate to add a "rover" argument to this template, differentiating them from spacecraft, which "fly" through outer space, as opposed to "driving" through it on a land-body. This is a small point, but the Apollo rovers seem to be a very special case. There is room for discussion and pushback here. In a definite sense, any vehicle moving through outer space may be construed as a "spacecraft". Still, the flying/roving distinction among craft has several distinguishing examples. I therefore request the addition of such an argument in the template following this talk post, which would then be implemented on the Apollo 15-17 articles.
Moreover upon quick review, the "rover" argument could be usefully applied to the various robotic-rover articles throughout the encyclopedia, which employ the "infobox spaceflight" template. This strengthens the point! MinnesotanUser (talk) 05:19, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm finding this template a bit hard to read because of all the text. I was going to add a header color to break it up a bit. Testing it out right now in the sandbox. You can see the difference in the testcases. Anyone have any objections? Note that if I do implement this, I will also add it to the subtemplates so ALL centered headings would have that same colored background. I chose to go with #ddf because I know it is inline with WP:COLOR. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 23:49, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
Hello!
Is there any way to include multiple programs for the same satellite? I'm thinking of the Solrad series, several of which were also Explorers (e.g. Solrad 8).
Thank you,
--Neopeius (talk) 15:43, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
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Add another Template:Succession links with the parameters programme_2, previous_mission_2, and next_mission_2 to support articles like Solrad 8 per this request by Neopeius. Kees08 (Talk) 22:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC) Kees08 (Talk) 22:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
|programme2=
, |previous_mission2=
, and |next_mission2=
were added. Primefac (talk) 22:17, 27 January 2019 (UTC)According to the Wikipedia article Apsis terms like periselene and aposelene have two different meanings:
So I have been perusing the Wiki articles on missions to the moon. There is considerable confusion, as all of the article use the same infobox spaceflight parameters for their orbital elements, but some of the articles are using Definition #1 and others Definition #2.
There is no way for the average reader to figure out which in being used in any given case.
I would guess this confusion goes far beyond these article, probably to all articles involving orbiting bodies or spacecraft.
I would say there must be some way provided to discriminate between the two usages. Maybe it's just providing a simple flag to say whether the peri/apo distances are relative to barycenter or altitude above surface. Or maybe it's going and double checking all articles and converting to one standard reference.
But it is confusing both on the Wiki and outside, as some articles and references use one definition and others use the other. For example, NASA seems to pretty consistently use Definition #2. In giving perogee and apogee of artificial earth satellites, almost always Definition #2 is used (example: EchoStar I). In the articles about U.S. lunar orbiters, Definition #2 is used (example: Lunar_Orbiter_5
But in all the articles for the USSR's Luna Program, Definition #1 is used (example: Luna 1).
It's very confusing. But it might just be that the Luna Program articles, and maybe a few others, need to be updated to the same standards used in all the other articles, which use Definition #2.
Bhugh (talk) 21:21, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
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Please change the following parameter labels from:
to:
The purpose is to make the intent of the template design, as stated on the doc page, clear to readers of the Wikipedia articles. (There is some ambiguity, as the altitude parameter terms as commonly used don't actually correspond to the technical definition of Apsis.) JustinTime55 (talk) 21:12, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
Pointer to discussion I initiated in WP:Spaceflight that has to do with this infobox. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spaceflight#COSPAR_in_infoboxes Kees08 (Talk) 22:49, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I am adding a "rendezvous" type to Template:Infobox spaceflight/IP. This is specifically to address Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, where in both cases the spacecraft rendezvoused with their target asteroids and spent several months in the vicinity but never actually orbited. These missions used their ion engines to "hover" at a home position a few km from the target with brief excursions down closer to the surface (including a touchdown and sample collection in both cases). Hayabusa2's infobox currently lists it as a "(162173) Ryugu orbiter" with an orbital insertion date and orbital departure date, but this is misleading and incorrect because it never actually inserted itself into orbit around Ryugu (although none of the other currently available cases really fit either).
As this subpage is unprotected I will go ahead and add this case, but I just wanted to socialize the change here since the main template is protected. --Yarnalgo talk to me 19:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
Should there be a "partof" parameter on the infobox similar to the ((Infobox military conflict))? --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 11:04, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
What is going on with orbit_eccentricity? 562 instances on the error report, but that appears to be the correct parameter. Kees08 (Talk) 20:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Is there any particular reason we suggest the less used Template:Start-date (~4,800 instances) and Template:End-date (~1,500 instances) over Template:Start date (~330,000 instances) and Template:End date (~47,000 instances)? I did not see anything in the archives. The reason to suggest Start date and End date are ISO 8601 compliance, ease of use (IMO), and consistent date formatting across the spaceflight infobox (I have seen a decent amount of variation).
From the documentation page of Start date: ((start date|year|month|day|HH|MM|SS|TimeZone)) (MM and SS are optional; TimeZone may be a numerical value, or "Z" for UTC; see examples)
So ((start date|2015|7|2|15|4|12|Z)) produces 15:04:12, July 2, 2015 (UTC)
.There are cases where start date would be more appropriate, such as approximate dates, but those are rare in spaceflight infoboxes. Is there any reason we should recommend start-date and end-date in our documentation? Note, I do not want to forbid the usage of start-date and end-date, but only use it when start date and end date are not appropriate. Kees08 (Talk) 00:07, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
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Wikipedia's policy on the use of images states that "Except with very good reason, do not use px [...] which forces a fixed image width measured in pixels, disregarding the user's image size preference setting. In most cases upright=scaling_factor
should be used, thereby respecting the user's base preference (which may have been selected for that user's particular devices)." ((Infobox spaceflight)) currently does not allow for custom upright scaling on images displayed in it, and the upright scaling for each image in this infobox is fixed at 1.18, 0.82, and 1, respectively. This forces editors who want to change the width of an image in this infobox to instead use pixel scaling, even though upright scaling should be an option. To rectify this, I'm requesting that the recent changes made to ((Infobox spaceflight/sandbox)), illustrated here, be applied to ((Infobox spaceflight)) to allow editors to use upright scaling per image use policy. It would add three new parameters; "image_upright
", "insignia_upright
", and "crew_photo_upright
", while preserving the default upright scaling of 1.18, 0.82, and 1, respectively. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 02:25, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
I have been looking through this infobox thinking of updates, and this happens to be one I was considering. My notes were:
With that, we should maybe deprecate the size options in favor of the upright parameter. I was planning to find the discussion where those infoboxes decided on deprecation, but had not gotten that far yet. Kees08 (Talk) 07:09, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be beneficial to link to Orbital decay? Zarex (talk) 15:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Under basic details (eg after mission type) could we include budget and final cost ? - Rod57 (talk) 12:28, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
I've always found the order of sections in this infobox to be kind of weird. Information about the start and end of the mission are placed together, but information about the mission itself, described in the "Orbital parameters", interplanetary, and "Docking with / Berthing at" sections are placed after the "End of mission" section instead of before. The "Spacecraft properties" section is completely segregated from more detailed information on the spacecraft described in the "Payload", telescope, and "Transponders" sections. Would it perhaps be better to place information about the mission in a more sequential order, and put information about the spacecraft together, rather than separate them? — Molly Brown (talk) 23:07, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
The label "Space Station" should be changed to "Space station" because it is itself not a proper name. Ponydepression (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
this template should have entries for direct links to streamed launches or other relevant livestreams for the entries. 2A02:2F0B:B500:5A00:CCF7:1410:791:32C0 (talk) 20:15, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
As can be seen here when an instrument_list is used it's basically duplicative and not terribly helpful.
I propose either making a header and then the left column defines the category of sensor (e.g. "electro-optical", "radio", "thermal", etc). Or more simply, add this to another category and just have "Instruments" on the left and then a bulleted list. JackW2 (talk) 07:02, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
I noticed that there is not a "orbit_latitude" section in the infobox even though there is an "orbit_longitude" section. Darthbots (talk) 17:51, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
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Because some infobox users are specifying launch dates with times down to the second, and in multiple timezones, the resulting lines can break in unfortunate places. The result is that long infoboxes become even longer. Please add a separate infobox parameter for 'launch time' to isolate that on a separate (hopefuly single) line in these infoboxes. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 23:53, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
| launch_date = <!--((start-date|DATE, TIME)) [[UTC]]-->
A sample article suffering from this is IM-1.
The code involved is:
|data7 = ((#if:(({entered_service|))}(({launch_date|(({launch_rocket|(({launch_site|(({launch_contractor|))))))))))))|((infobox|child=yes
|header1=Start of mission
|label2 = Launch date
|data2 = (({launch_date|))}
|label3 = Rocket
|data3 = (({launch_rocket|))}
|label4 = Launch site
|data4 = (({launch_site|))}
|label5 = Contractor
|data5 = (({launch_contractor|))}
|label6 = Deployed from
|data6 = (({deployment_from|))}
|label7 = Deployment date
|data7 = (({deployment_date|))}
|label8 = Entered service
|data8 = (({entered_service|))}
The change would be to insert:
|label3 = Launch time
|data3 = (({launch_time|))}
and increment the label# and data# for each field that follows. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 01:06, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
&
nbsp;
this works fine. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 11:28, 3 March 2024 (UTC)