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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs) at 05:50, 3 May 2021 (Archiving 1 discussion(s) to Talk:SpaceX reusable launch system development program/Archive 1) (bot). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Good articleSpaceX reusable launch system development program has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
March 18, 2014Good article nomineeListed
April 1, 2017Good article reassessmentKept
Current status: Good article

Community reassessment

SpaceX reusable launch system development program

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Kept There are no requirements for citations every section and bullet points are allowed. No major neutrality concerns so closing this as keeping its good article status. AIRcorn (talk) 03:27, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings! I came across this page recently, and it looks like the article could use some work to get back to meeting the GA criteria. Specifically, there are sections that are completely uncited, a section that using bulleted entries when it could be prose (not following MoS), and it does not seem very neutral (calling a section routine procedure after one reflown booster?).

I would correct all these myself, but it looks like a very large project and I am honestly not interested in putting that level of effort in. I can contribute in reviewing and doing some of the changes required however. Kees08 (talk) 17:59, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the notice. We can work to add citations, there are plenty of good sources available. Regarding "routine procedure", we are talking about the first-stage landings, which have indeed become standard and routine. You are correct to note that relaunching boosters is not routine yet, but the article does not say that. — JFG talk 19:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, let's at least get some citations in that section and maybe clarify it a little. Both SpaceX and other citations would be good, in an effort to level out the POV. I can go through the whole article and pick out specific things, but I think you generally know what needs improved, so if you want you can just ping me when the major issues are addressed and I can go through it in detail after that. Whatever works for me. Kees08 (talk) 20:29, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@JFG: Wanted to check in on this, would you like me to start tagging the article or bring up the issues here? Probably should get this going soon. Thanks! Kees08 (Talk) 18:44, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I had forgotten about this process. Do let me know what you think should be improved, and I'll take a look asap. — JFG talk 23:57, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Biggest one is to increase the number of statements with citations. I can tag a bunch with citation needed tags if you need. I can give a full, proper review as well, though it would help me out a lot if the statements in the article were supported with citations. Kees08 (Talk) 00:15, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, don't bother tagging, I'll take a pass over the weekend. — JFG talk 00:38, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kees08, thanks for your community review, and thanks JFG for being active and offering to help bring the article back to GA criteria. I just saw this Talk Page section today and seem to have not been aware of this. I did a lot of work to get this article to GA status back in the day, and the SpaceX dev program on this has been rather dynamic so lots of stuff is changing in the real world all the time the past 3+ years so it can be challenging to keep the article in sycn.

How can I help. It looks like JFG was going to work the set of items identified on 15 Dec. Did that happen? Does Kees08 think its fixed now? Might you be willing to tag the specific areas you see remaining so that we can keep the re-GA cleanup process moving forward? N2e (talk) 11:22, 2 January 2018 (UTC) Sorry about this, I will try to get to it again soon. Kees08 (Talk) 00:33, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Second stage as spaceship

The "Second-stage reuse" section of the article currently states an, "integrated second-stage-with-spaceship design [...] has not been commonly used in previous launch vehicles." But see RM-81 Agena. The final launch was in 1987; 365 were flown. Does that flight history somehow fail to qualify Agena as having been "commonly used?" (sdsds - talk) 06:15, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Just saw this question sdsds. Is a good one. I had time only to skim that Wikipedia article prose, but not go after the sources. Do you think there is a good source anywhere that does a solid job explicating just how the Agena might be thought to have been an "integrated second-stage-with-spaceship design"? Otherwise, it seems a bit like Agena, and maybe even a few of the Chinese second stages being used today, are more "integrated second-stage-with-attached satellite" designs. But even that might be worth mentioning to improve this article if we could find sources that are descriptive of some sort of integrated-second-stage designs in contrast to the BFR design integrated reusable spaceship designs. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks N2e your thinking on this is good. Musk (the cited source) pretty clearly knows "spaceship" can refer to both a human-carrying and a satellite- or probe-carrying vehicle, but he might mean us in this context to be thinking of human-carrying vehicles where (to my knowledge) nothing quite like what's envisioned for BFS was ever "commonly used." (Or ever used at all?)
I'm sure there are sources we could cite describing Agena (and the others you mention) as being integrated second-stage and payload vehicles but in the context of Musk's assertion, mentioning that what he said might be misconstrued would probably be out of place! (sdsds - talk) 02:20, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits

I reverted the recent Bold and good faith edits that added a detailed numeric list of all the many years of test flights to this WP:GA good article. Let's discuss it on first and see if ther is a consensus for this change.

This article describes a long-term multi-year program of technology development for many different launch and spacecraft systems at SpaceX, and describes the development of fundamental rocket technology that Musk has said SpaceX will have failed if they don't eventually get there: fully and rapidly reusable rockets. I don't believe it will be helpful to have yet another article with a detailed count of every test flight and success/failure/who knows. Rather, this article can reference those other articles that maintain detailed counts by the particular vehicle. N2e (talk) 12:18, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You also reverted several other good changes. You also added back information that is obviously outdated. Could you please only revert the part you object to and not just blindly revert everything because you object to half a sentence? There was no "detailed numeric list", there was a first and last flight. We also list the first and last flight for a couple of other vehicles in the article, I don't see what would be different for Starhopper. --mfb (talk) 03:12, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in SpaceX reusable launch system development program

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of SpaceX reusable launch system development program's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "trati20181224":

  • From BFR (rocket): Ralph, Eric (24 December 2018). "SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: Starship prototype to have 3 Raptors and "mirror finish"". Teslarati. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 24 December 2018.
  • From SpaceX Starship: Ralph, Eric (24 December 2018). "SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: Starship prototype to have 3 Raptors and "mirror finish"". Teslarati. Retrieved 24 December 2018.
  • From SpaceX: Ralph, Eric (24 December 2018). "SpaceX CEO Elon Musk: Starship prototype to have 3 Raptors and "mirror finish"". Teslarati. Retrieved 24 December 2018.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 05:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Another list of the many rocket technologies needed for reuse

From CNBC space reporter Michael Sheetz: Here is another fairly-comprehensive list of the many rocket technologies needed for reuse. These technologies need to be developed by each rocket company (as only SpaceX has already gone up that learning curve with their engineers and operational staff) and also need to be operated on every flight that has a reusable landing.

The list is from another US rocket company, ULA, but seems to capture a lot of ideas, and might be useful for improving this article and the list of many technologies necessary for reusable boosters (and, later, reusable 2nd stages). BTW, ULA here argues that in order to be cost-effective to do this, their "estimate remains around 10 flights as a fleet average to achieve a consistent breakeven point ... and that no one has come anywhere close." (SpaceX has only ever done up to 5 launches on the same booster, to date.) Source, Michael Sheetz, CNBC space journalist, 17 April 2020. —— N2e (talk) 17:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Space Shuttle

Strange page, as the Space Shuttle is mentioned only once, despite being the benchmak of all the spacecraft that want to achieve reusablility. (post left by IP editor: 181.126.211.193)

Not sure I've ever seen a source that supports your assertion: Space Shuttle "being the benchmark of all the spacecraft that want to achieve reusablility." But do feel free to find that source or those sources; after all WP:ANYONECANEDIT.
It did achieve a (very expensive; >$1B per flight) reusability of the upper stage and human capsule, but it expended the main orbital flight structure and propellant tanks. The Solid Rocket Boosters were recovered following parachute descent into the water, but were essentially just recovering the steel cases, with the entirety of the SRBs needed to be rebuilt from the multiple segments. In short, the Space Shuttle and it's rebuilt SRBs and new main rocket structure cost much more for each flight than an equivalent expendable launch vehicle would have cost, even at the high costs of US government cost-plus contracting launch costs, which the GAO had said the average exceeded US$200 million per orbital launch, and perhaps 300-400 million per launch for the larger Delta IV LVs that would have been required for the heaviest payloads.
That is rather hugely unlike an entirely intact first stage liquid propellant booster that is now recovered routinely by SpaceX, and then the company does future flights for < c.US$50 million dollars per future orbital flight. Musk is on record saying he would have failed if Falcon 9 booster reuse ended up costing more than equivalent payloads on expendable rockets would have cost. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:45, 2 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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