Template talk:Infobox spaceflight

"Principal investigator" parameter for unmanned missions?

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)

I can think of two reasons against this change:

• Choice of "Principal investigator" as the parameter name: I don't see any real-world consensus that's what the person in charge would be called, everywhere around the world. Our article defines a PI as 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.)
• In many cases, a specific individual in charge would not be possible (or easy) to identify. Who was the mission leader for Sputnik 1, Explorer 1, Ranger 7, Voyager 1, etc?

In most cases, it's only possible to identify the group responsible for analyzing the data. There is already an Operator field. It goes without saying that unmanned space projects are conducted by humans (as opposed to, say, wolves or extraterrestrials.) I don't agree with your assertion that lack of this field means "the human aspect gets lost". JustinTime55 (talk) 21:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Aphelion misspelled when using template

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)

Someone answered this request, the code is "apsis|Apo" --Frmorrison (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

This template should have a Twitter handle entry

Most updates get published on Twitter these days. Nergaal (talk) 15:31, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

This discussion had been had before, see this section above. Conclusion was that putting social media links in the infobox was a violation of wp:ELNO and wp:INFOBOXPURPOSE. --Cincotta1 (talk) 18:26, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I think official NASA accounts are not "social network" links. They are run fairly professionally and generally provide very up-to-date informations about the spacecrafts. See [1]. Nergaal (talk) 09:18, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

They are still, by definition, social media sites. Even they call them as such. — Huntster (t @ c) 18:36, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Left align for instruments list

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)

Proposal: add maximum characteristic energy (C3) to orbital parameters section

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)

"Rover" Argument

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)

Template-protected edit request on 12 September 2018

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)

Oppose The Apollo Lunar Rover was not a spacecraft (or a "fourth module" of the Apollo spacecraft as you put in the Apollo 15 infobox]]. I believe the same is also true of unmanned rovers sent to Mars or the Moon. Wikipedia defines Spacecraft as "a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space".

You even said so yourself: "Several objects sent to outer space are better classified as rovers than as spacecraft". And I don't see you explaining why the modification is necessary. I see no reason for it. JustinTime55 (talk) 13:56, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

 Not done — A rover is not a spacecraft. — JFG ^talk 15:57, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Header color

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)

@JFG: want to make sure you see this. :-) --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 23:50, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Looks good to me, I'd be onboard with the change. It might be useful to try it on {{Infobox rocket}} as well, instead of the tiny line separator currently applied to section breaks. Check the rocket test cases there. — JFG ^talk 23:58, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: Hey there, not sure what happened, but I was getting a fatal error in this template on the Apollo 8 page. I think GorillaWarfare fixed it and you can redeploy your edits...I assumed since you were editing this template it was the reason for the error. This was the real issue. Sorry for any confusion. Kees08 (Talk) 06:40, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Looks like I did not rollback correctly, so I think we are all good. Sorry again for any confusion! Kees08 (Talk) 06:42, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Multiple programs in the same template

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)

In case anyone reads this request, it was taken care of in the next section. Kees08 (Talk) 22:49, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 27 January 2019

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)

 Done. |programme2=, |previous_mission2=, and |next_mission2= were added. Primefac (talk) 22:17, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Wow! Talk about fast service. Thanks so much (puts on todo list). :) --Neopeius (talk) 22:31, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Confusion of Apsis terms - distance between barycenters vs orbital altitude above surface

According to the Wikipedia article Apsis terms like periselene and aposelene have two different meanings:

[Definition #1] In orbital mechanics, the apsides technically refer to the distance measured between the barycenters of the central body and orbiting body.

[Definition #2] However, in the case of a spacecraft, the terms are commonly used to refer to the orbital altitude of the spacecraft above the surface of the central body (assuming a constant, standard reference radius).

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)

At least in terms of orbital mechanics and navigation, definition 2 is simply incorrect. And when it comes to robotic spacecraft, I've never seen NASA use that definition. I've seen definition 2 also called "closest approach altitude" rather than "periapsis." That isn't ambiguous, but it is cumbersome. But there are many cases of people using definition 2 for periapsis. I don't think Wikipedia can an inconsistency in our sources.[This sentence is missing a verb; "can what an inconsistency?" JustinTime55] But we could modify the template to say "x km (from body center)" or "x km (from the surface)". Fcrary (talk) 21:39, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

There are a few points you have to consider:

• In order to make technical information accessible, NASA's use in public information is probably different from the terminology used in-house by the people who actually do the orbital mechanics calculations. For a spacecraft orbiting the Earth, the Moon, or other planet or Moon in the solar system, the public only cares about the altitude, so #2 has become the public definition of shorthand for "altitude at (apogee, perigee, etc.)".
• No one is ever going to set foot on the Sun; also, heliocentric orbits are generally much larger than the Sun's diameter, therefore definition #1 is probably more relevant for heliocentric orbits. In this case, the difference between the two is relatively small. I calculate the Sun's mean radius to be .00931 AU. (For the Earth, Moon, etc., the opposite is usually true, i.e. for lower orbits.)
• This type of inconsistency is more likely to bother us experts (well-versed in orbital mechanics) than the average reader.
• Inconsistency among wide classes of articles seems to be an endemic problem here; that's part of the nature of any wiki. It takes a conscientious group of people working together (WP:Wikiproject or working group) to coordinate things and make things consistent. Like herding cats.
• Looking at the template documentation, the intent is clearly given:

| suborbital_apogee = <!--altitude reached if spacecraft did not enter orbit--> Nothing else really makes sense; average readers aren't concerned with a suborbital flight's orbital parameters.

| orbit_periapsis = <!--periapsis altitude-->

| orbit_apoapsis = <!--apoapsis altitude-->

The issue of what the defintions mean, and popular usage, should be addressed in the body of the article Apsis. (It is already mentioned in the introduction, as you noted above.) I believe article consistency should be based on true apsis only for heliocentric spacecraft, and altitude for all others.

Thank you for raising the issue of article inconsistency; this needs to be raised at Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject Spaceflight. You should put a pointer at that talk page (but first, please learn how to do wikilinks, and verify they work before you press "Publish"). JustinTime55 (talk) 12:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Based on the intent of the template, I would support modifying the template to change the labels to "Altitude at peri{{{apsis}}}" and "Altitude at apo{{{apsis}}}" (or "Peri{{{apsis}}} altitude" and "Apo{{{apsis}}} altitude"). JustinTime55 (talk). Same for suborbital_apogee. 16:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Can we retain the option of either apoapsis or altitude at apoapsis? In addition to the Sun, the gas giants do not have solid surfaces. There radius isn't well-defined (e.g. it can mean about the visible cloud tops, at the 1 bar level, at the 0.1 bar level, etc.) I don't think altitude makes sense for something orbiting them. Fcrary (talk) 18:32, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

That logically would change the definition of orbit_periapsis and orbit_apoapsis to the other one, and require adding new parameters (e.g. periapsis_altitude and apoapsis_altitude) That means a tremendous amount of work to back-fill the existing applications, of which there are 2986 according to the transclusion count tool. Apparently programming protected templates like this one, and programming bots to automate maintenance backfill tasks like that, are precious resources here (I'm personally able to do neither.) And you have yet to establish a consensus. These tend to gravitate toward what requires the minimum amount of work.

The gas giants still have visible disks, and apparently 1 bar is taken as the standard working definition to define the planet's mean radius (see Jupiter for example). Flyby and orbital distances have to be definable, such as at Galileo (spacecraft). Note in that article the problem is bypassed; there are no orbital parameters given in that infobox. JustinTime55 (talk) 19:57, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

In this case, I think we may have to live with inconsistency. There are sources which use periapsis and apoapsis altitude, but the Wikipedia articles on Keplerian orbits, orbital elements, etc. are full of formulas which use distance from barycenter (and that can't be changed.)

But in the case of gas giants, no, the radius of the body is not clearly and uniquely defined. That's a source of frustration to some of us in the field. And, for Galileo, Cassini and similar spacecraft, leaving the orbital parameters out is the right thing to do. Over the course of the missions, their orbits changed by huge amounts. If memory serves, Cassini's apoapsis varied from 20 to over 100 Saturn radii. Fcrary (talk) 20:44, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

We're just talking here about changing this template; no one is proposing changing the Wikipedia articles or any formulas that you mention. We seem to be agreed that this template can't be expected to "end world hunger", so I'm going to close this and submit an edit request to get the parameter labels changed so the current intent of the template is clear to readers. Hopefully that will get the attention of those who can actually update the template (e.g. Huntster, Zackmann08, ...) JustinTime55 (talk) 21:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Protected template edit request, 21 June 2019

Please change the following parameter labels from:

Peri{{{apsis}}} {{{orbit_periapsis}}}

Apo{{{apsis}}} {{{orbit_apoapsis}}}

to:

Peri{{{apsis}}} altitude {{{orbit_periapsis}}}

Apo{{{apsis}}} altitude {{{orbit_apoapsis}}}

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)

 Done Ruslik_Zero 20:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

COSPAR in infoboxes

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)

Adding "rendezvous" type to Template:Infobox spaceflight/IP

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)

Request for comment 3 February 2020, "partof" - withdrawn

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Withdrawn by nom. --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 17:32, 8 February 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)

Would it be unambiguous and relevant for a large number of launches? I can see "part of Apollo program", "part of Luna program" and so on, but "part of Space Shuttle program" sounds odd already (as the common element would be the launch vehicle, not the mission). --mfb (talk) 14:04, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure. "part of the Discovery Program" might be useful information, and those missions' goals have little in common with each other. And the Explorer program is even more diverse. But in the case of the Shuttle program, I think it's pretty self-evident which missions were part of it. I guess I could go with a partof parameter if it were used with some common sense and restraint. Fcrary (talk) 21:48, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

There are already programme and programme2 parameters in the template. Unlike the milt hist box, they render at the bottom with arrows to the adjacent flights in the programme (see for example the infobox on STS-125 which links to the space shuttle program and STS-119 and STS-127). I could see changing the layout so these links get a more prominent position, but I'm not entirely sure if this is what Soumya had in mind though. @Soumya-8974: could you elaborate a little more on what you would like this new parameter to do?--Cincotta1 (talk) 22:49, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose That's right; the template is already set up to group missions into programs, and another field isn't necessary. Analogy to Infobox military conflict doesn't make any sense; that's a completely different topic which isn't analogous to space flights. JustinTime55 (talk) 23:21, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

I meant to use the "partof" parameter to the individual spacecraft part of a specific spaceflight. For example, Telstar 302 and Telstar 303 are part of the STS-51-D and STS-51-G, respectively. --Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 17:24, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't think I'd agree with that. The Telstar spacecraft were autonomous communications satellites which weren't NASA operated. They continued to operate well after the associated Shuttle flights had landed and those missions were long over. Fcrary (talk) 20:08, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with Fcrary. The Shuttles were the equivalent of "FedEx" trucks. These Telstars were payloads (cargo) delivered by the Shuttles, not "parts of" them. There is already a payload section (cargo parameters) and input parameter in the infobox; that is where the Telstars need to be entered. The answer is not to unnecessarily mutate the template, to use it in a way it wasn't designed for. JustinTime55 (talk) 22:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Eccentricity

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)

I take it back, its a usage report not an error report. I'm going to try to add the parameter to a template again and see if I keep getting an error, then I'll post why I am here in the first place. Standby :). Kees08 (Talk) 20:29, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I was working on this edit and kept getting an error that it wasn't a valid parameter; I refreshed, tried again, and now there is no error. Attributing to PEBKAC. Looks like we are all good here. Kees08 (Talk) 20:32, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Date format templates

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) (2015-07-02T15:04:12Z).

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)

Requesting changes to allow upright image scaling

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:

• image_upright (example: Template:Infobox person, Template:Infobox military person)
  • Note to self: image_size is deprecated on Infobox person in favor of upright; see why and if that should be case here

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)

I found no discussion on infobox person (besides one saying the change should happen, found out it already happened, then updating the documentation). For infobox military person, it was introduced in this request with little fanfare.

I will go ahead and make the change, I cannot think of any reason not to and there was not any backlash for the change when done on two highly-used templates. The crew_image_size is used only once, image_size 234 times (ugh), and insignia_size 95 times. I believe deprecating the sizes is a separate task and will discuss that in another section. Should just involve changes to documentation and adjusting the upright parameter to a useful number in the ~300 instances it occurs, but I will make a new section for discussion. Kees08 (Talk) 15:41, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kees08: Thanks for carrying out the move for me! Though, I want to ask how one checks usage of individual parameters? That seems like a useful thing to know, and I’d like to know which tool/method allows one to see that? – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 20:47, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@PhilipTerryGraham: I use this parameter usage report, which updates once a month. It only reports parameters that have TemplateData, so some other spaceflight-related templates do not work with it yet. Kees08 (Talk) 22:24, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@Kees08: Thanks heaps for showing me this; no doubt I'll be using this a lot! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 23:02, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

@PhilipTerryGraham: It is very handy! I hope to get TemplateData into the other infoboxes, but when I started going through this template I saw a lot of room for improvement. Also note that most of the invalid parameters have been fixed, and that page will not update until May. Kees08 (Talk) 23:29, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit request (Decay date field)

Wouldn't it be beneficial to link to Orbital decay? Zarex (talk) 15:15, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Under basic details could we include budget and final cost

Under basic details (eg after mission type) could we include budget and final cost ? - Rod57 (talk) 12:28, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Order of sections

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)

Edit request (capitalization)

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)

 Done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:55, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

links

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)

"instruments_list" reads weird

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)

Missing template info

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)

Add launch time

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)

 Not done for now: You have not linked to any affected articles or proposed new code, so there is not an obvious edit to make here. The documentation says

| launch_date           = <!--{{start-date|DATE, TIME}}&nbsp;[[UTC]]-->

which seems pretty clear to me. If people are using a different format, you could fix it per the template's documentation – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:47, 3 March 2024 (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)

I have fixed that article per this template's documentation. I think you would need to get consensus to change this template rather than going with the consistent format recommended by the documentation, as most articles appear to do. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:46, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah thanks! With strict adherence to the documentation, including use of &nbsp; this works fine. (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) (— 𝐬𝐝𝐒𝐝𝐬 — - talk) 11:28, 3 March 2024 (UTC)