User talk:Joost van Assenbergh

Downlink special issues notice

Hello! This is an announcement that The Downlink has been revived. Rather than simply start again, I have chosen to create two special issues recapping the past three years. The first special issue spans November 2021 to December 2023, while the second special issue spans January 2024 to December 2024.

Due to the size of these pages, as well as the fact that they are non-standard issues, I have instead had this notice sent out. The following issues of volume 3 (Jan - Dec 2025) should be significantly smaller.

Please be aware that, for a variety of reasons, the issues that I create may be published late.

Here are the issues:

• First special issue

• Second special issue

Ships & Space_(Edits) 02:36, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

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The Downlink Volume 3, Issue 1

	The Downlink	The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
		2025 1 – 31 January

Volume 3 — Issue 1
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
Introduction to Volume 3 Initially launched in late 2010/early 2011 for a run of four months, The Downlink was unpublished for more than nine years, after which a second volume was published from October 2020 to October 2021. This second volume was very different from the first volume, both in style and structure. A December issue was planned (for some reason, the second volume became volume 1 in April 2021), but was never finished. Like with volume 2, this volume 3 was intended to come with changes, though primarily to style. Volume 3 will not feature any significant changes to style or structure. This both provides continuity with the previous volume and allows the contributors to construct each issue relatively easily. However, following volumes may see changes to style, format, and upload schedule. As it is still very early in the year, a discussion on this is not yet necessary, but suggestions of all kinds are always welcome at the talk page.
In the News Blue Ghost Mission 1 and Hakuto-R Mission 2 were launched from Kennedy Space Center on 15 January. They are planned to land in March and April, respectively. On 30 January, Sunita Williams broke Peggy Whitson's record for most time spent on spacewalks by a woman, at 62 hours and 6 minutes total. ISRO successfully docked two SpaDeX satellites on 16 January, making India the fourth country (including the EU) to dock two vehicles in space. Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle completed its maiden flight on 16 January. The payload was successfully placed in orbit, while the first staged failed to land on the recovery ship.
Featured Content The image Jupiter clouds was promoted to Featured Media status on 4 January. It was nominated by MER-C.
Article of the Month Soyuz programme Artist's impression of the Soyuz 19 spacecraft from the Apollo–Soyuz mission The Soyuz programme (/ˈsɔɪjuːz/ SOY-yooz, /ˈsɔː-/ SAW-; Russian: Союз [sɐˈjus], meaning "Union") is a human spaceflight programme initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. The Soyuz spacecraft was originally part of a Moon landing project intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon. It was the third Soviet human spaceflight programme after the Vostok (1961–1963) and Voskhod (1964–1965) programmes. The programme consists of the Soyuz capsule and the Soyuz rocket and is now the responsibility of Roscosmos. After the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, the Soyuz was the only way for humans to get to the International Space Station (ISS) until 30 May 2020 when Crew Dragon flew to the ISS for the first time with astronauts.	Image of the Month Gene Cernan on the Moon Gene Cernan was the eleventh and (as of 2025) last person to ever step foot on the moon. In addition to being an astronaut, he was an aviator in the US Navy and engineer. Apollo 17 was his second Apollo mission, as he served as Apollo 10's lunar module pilot. He died in Houston on 16 January, 2017. He was the first astronaut to be buried at Texas State Cemetery.
Members New members: Joost van Assenbergh (9 January) TheCosmicNebula (25 January) Number of active members: 200. Total number of members: 426. Launches All times stated here are in UTC. For a complete list, see here: List_of_spaceflight_launches_in_January–June_2025#January. New Glenn — DarkSky-1 (16 Jan. at 07:03) (success) SpaceX Starship — 10 Starlink simulators (16 Jan. at 22:37) (launch failure)	Article Statistics This data reflects values from the 31 January 2025. Spaceflight articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 7 28 14 8 57 FL 3 4 4 11 FM 123 123 A 1 2 2 5 GA 11 27 34 55 1 128 B 15 83 201 217 1 517 C 43 161 574 754 29 1,561 Start 18 146 1,022 2,558 434 4,178 Stub 9 203 2,052 243 2,507 List 10 116 108 236 1 26 497 Category 1,228 1,228 Disambig 47 47 File 223 223 Portal 55 55 Project 109 109 Redirect 1 42 131 1,238 1,412 Template 525 525 NA 5 5 Other 39 39 Assessed 105 574 2,204 6,017 3,593 734 13,227 Unassessed 19 133 152 Total 105 574 2,204 6,036 3,593 867 13,379 Monthly Changes Since December 2024, five new high-importance, eight new mid-importance, forty new low-importance, and 1,522 new NA-importance articles have been created. Fifteen unknown-importance articles have been removed, for a total of 1,560 more articles. One article has been promoted to Good Article status. There are also three more B-class articles, eleven more C-class articles, 23 more Start-class articles, four more Stub-class articles, 4 more lists, and 34 more files.
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

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:30, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

The Downlink Volume 3, Issue 2

	The Downlink	The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
		2025 1 — 28 February

Volume 3 — Issue 2
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News On 17 February, as part of a Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission, Intuitive Machines' lunar lander IM-2 was launched on board a Falcon 9. It was also launched with Lunar Trailblazer and Brokkr-2. The European Space Agency's space telescope INTEGRAL was retired on 28 February after 22 years, five months, and one day. It is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere in 2029.
Article of the month Family Portrait (Voyager) The Family Portrait of the Solar System taken by Voyager 1 The Family Portrait, or sometimes Portrait of the Planets, is an image of the Solar System acquired by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990, from a distance of approximately 6 billion km (40 AU; 3.7 billion mi) from Earth. It features individual frames of six planets and a partial background indicating their relative positions. The picture is a mosaic of 60 frames. The frames used to compose the image were the last photographs taken by either Voyager spacecraft (which continued to relay other telemetry afterward). The frames were also the source of the famous Pale Blue Dot image of the Earth. Astronomer Carl Sagan, who was part of the Voyager imaging team, campaigned for many years to have the pictures taken.	Image of the month STS-98 following liftoff Launched on 7 February 2001, STS-98 delivered to the Destiny laboratory module of the International Space Station. Flown by Atlantis, it was the first human spaceflight mission of the 21st century. The shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base on 20 February after being docked with the ISS for almost seven days. The crew consisted of Kenneth Cockrell, commander, Mark L. Polansky, pilot, Robert Curbeam, mission specialist 1, Marsha Ivins, mission specialist 2 and flight engineer, and Thomas David Jones, mission specialist 3.
Members New Members: No new members. Number of active members: 200. Total number of members: 426. February Launches All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here. Soyuz 2.1v and Volga — Kosmos-2581/-2582/-2583 (5 Feb. at 03:59) (success) Long March 8A — 9 Hulianwang Digui (11 Feb. at 09:30) (success) Falcon 9 Block 5 — 23 Starlink (18 Feb. at 23:21) (success) Falcon 9 Block 5 — multiple (27 Feb. at 00:02) (launch success)	Article Statistics This data reflects values from the 28 February 2025. Spaceflight articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 7 28 14 8 57 FL 3 4 4 11 FM 123 123 A 1 3 2 6 GA 11 27 33 55 1 127 B 15 83 200 217 1 516 C 43 162 575 760 30 1,570 Start 18 146 1,022 2,565 440 4,191 Stub 9 203 2,054 244 2,510 List 10 116 108 236 1 27 498 Category 1,262 1,262 Disambig 47 47 File 223 223 Portal 55 55 Project 109 109 Redirect 1 42 131 1,238 1,412 Template 527 527 NA 3 3 Other 1 34 35 Assessed 105 575 2,204 6,033 3,622 743 13,282 Unassessed 19 136 155 Total 105 575 2,204 6,052 3,622 879 13,437 Monthly Changes Since January 2025, one new high-importance, sixteen new low-importance, nineteen new NA-importance, and twelve new unknown-importance articles have been created, for a total of 58 new articles. One article has been demoted from Good Article status. There are also one more A-class article, one more B-class article, nine fewer C-class articles, thirteen more Start-class articles, three more Stub-class articles, and one more list.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list. Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space, Geni

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:59, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Dark mode header edits

Hi, can you not add dark mode invert tags to headers in articles? They break edit logs because it inserts the template into the edit log when you edit a section. I feel like you're misusing this header for a purpose it was never intended. Ergzay (talk) 22:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I added those because the articles are otherwise unreadable with dark mode enabled. Exactly what the template was designed for. I checked that they did not break the article in any way.

But I did not know it caused issues with the logs, thank you for informing me. Joost van Assenbergh (talk) 10:52, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

The Downlink Volume 3, Issue 3

	The Downlink	The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
		2025 1 — 31 March

Volume 3 — Issue 3
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial company to successfully achieve a soft landing on the moon on 2 March with the landing of Blue Ghost Mission 1 near Mons Latreille. It lasted the intended length of one lunar day before losing power on 16 March. It was launched with the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander Resilience and rover Tenacious, which are planned to land in the Mare Frigoris. On 6 March, the IM-2 mission's lunar lander Athena landed on Mons Mouton. Although intact, it landed sideways, preventing it from generating enough power to operate as designed. The mission was declared over the following day. SpaceX Crew-9 splashed down near Tallahassee, Florida on 18 March. Initially planned to launch with a full complement, the extension of Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams' stay on the ISS resulted in it being launched with only two crew members.
Article of the month Phootprint The Phootprint mission is a candidate for the Mars Robotic Exploration Preparation Programme 2 (MREP-2) at ESA. During 2014, ESA funded a pre-phase A feasibility study and industrial system studies of 8-month duration. Currently, it is in phase A, meaning 'mission definition study.' The mission would last about 3.5 years, including cruise, mapping orbit, 7 days on the surface, and sample return cruise time. The spacecraft would be powered by solar arrays. In August 2015, the ESA-Roscosmos working group on post-ExoMars cooperation, completed a joint study for a possible future Phobos Sample Return mission, and preliminary discussions were held.	Image of the month InSight lander testing The InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander was selected from among three options in August 2012. Initially planned to launch in March 2016, an instrument issue delayed the launch to May 2018, the next Earth-Mars launch window. It was successfully launched on 5 May, and landed on Elysium Planitia on 26 November 2018. Taking seismographic and thermographic readings, InSight operated for a total of 4 years and 19 days instead of its planned 2 year mission. The mission was declared over on 21 December, 2022 after contact was lost on 15 December. A re-analysis of some of its data indicates that there may be significant amounts of groundwater in Mars' crust.
Members New Members: Desertroseflora (6 March) Nowhed (13 March) 4-RAZOR 01 (15 March) Orion.Project (28 March) Number of active members: 206. Total number of members: 430. March Launches All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here. Ariane 62 — CSO-3 (6 Mar. at 16:24 UTC) (success) SpaceX Starship — four Starlink simulators (6 Mar. at 23:30 UTC) (launch failure) Rocket Lab Electron — QPS-SAR 9/SUSANOO-1 (15 Mar. at 00:00 UTC) (success) Spectrum — no payload (30 Mar. at 10:30 UTC) (launch failure)	Article Statistics This data reflects values from the 28 February 2025. Spaceflight articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 7 28 14 8 57 FL 3 4 4 11 FM 123 123 A 1 3 2 6 GA 11 27 33 55 1 127 B 15 84 199 217 1 516 C 43 161 577 764 30 1,575 Start 18 145 1,021 2,569 441 4,194 Stub 9 203 2,055 245 2,512 List 10 116 108 236 1 28 499 Category 1,263 1,263 Disambig 47 47 File 223 223 Portal 55 55 Project 109 109 Redirect 2 42 129 1,241 1,414 Template 528 528 NA 3 3 Other 28 28 Assessed 105 575 2,204 6,039 3,621 746 13,290 Unassessed 19 134 153 Total 105 575 2,204 6,058 3,621 880 13,443 Monthly Changes Since February 2025, six new low-importance and one new unknown-importance articles have been created. One NA-importance article has been removed, for a total of six new articles. There are also five more C-class articles, three more Start-class articles, two more Stub-class articles, and one more list.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list. Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:04, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Trouted

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

You have been trouted for: STINKY POO POO SOCKS 77.173.174.16 (talk) 10:53, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay Marvin, thank you for this unnecessary trout Joost van Assenbergh (talk) 10:54, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

The Downlink Volume 3, Issue 4

⭠ Previous Issue ⭢ Following Issue

	The Downlink	The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
		2025 1 — 30 April

Volume 3 — Issue 4
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News On 1 April, Fram2 became the first crewed mission to enter into a retrograde orbit around Earth's poles.
Article of the month Apollo Abort Guidance System The Apollo Abort Guidance System (AGS, also known as Abort Guidance Section) was a backup computer system providing an abort capability in the event of failure of the Lunar Module's primary guidance system (Apollo PGNCS) during descent, ascent or rendezvous. As an abort system, it did not support guidance for a lunar landing. The AGS was designed by TRW independently of the development of the Apollo Guidance Computer and PGNCS. It was the first navigation system to use a strapdown Inertial Measurement Unit rather than a gimbaled gyrostabilized IMU (as used by PGNCS). Although not as accurate as the gimbaled IMU, it provided satisfactory accuracy with the help of the optical telescope and rendezvous radar. It was also lighter and smaller in size.	Image of the month Falcon 9 Full Thrust Starting development in 2014, the Falcon 9 Full Thrust is a variant of the Falcon 9 that is the first orbital rocket to have a first stage successfully land vertically after launch. The stage shown here is from the April 2016 SpaceX CRS-8 mission, after landing on the autonomous spaceport drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.
Members New Members: Willbill6272 (14 April) Elleh3113 (16 April) Number of active members: 208. Total number of members: 433. April Launches All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here. Falcon 9 Block 5 — Fram2 (1 Apr. at 00:46 UTC) (success) Long March 2F/G — Shenzhou 20 (24 Apr. at 09:17 UTC) (success) Atlas V 551 — 27 KuiperSats (28 Apr. at 23:01) (success) Firefly Alpha — LM-400 Demo (29 Apr. at 13:37) (launch failure)	Article Statistics This data reflects values from 30 April 2025. Spaceflight articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 7 28 15 8 58 FL 3 4 4 11 FM 123 123 A 1 2 2 5 GA 11 27 33 55 1 127 B 15 84 200 221 1 521 C 45 162 581 774 31 1,593 Start 16 144 1,017 2,584 444 4,205 Stub 9 204 2,049 244 2,506 List 10 120 108 236 1 30 505 Category 1,264 1,264 Disambig 47 47 File 223 223 Portal 55 55 Project 109 109 Redirect 2 42 131 1,243 1,418 Template 528 528 NA 1 1 Other 29 29 Assessed 105 579 2,206 6,064 3,623 751 13,328 Unassessed 14 125 139 Total 105 579 2,206 6,078 3,623 876 13,467 Monthly Changes Since March 2025, four new high-importance, two new mid-importance, twenty new low-importance, and two new NA-importance articles have been created. Four unknown-importance articles have been removed, for a total of 24 new articles. One article has been promoted to Featured Article status. There are also five more B-class articles, eighteen more C-class articles, eleven more Start-class articles, six fewer Stub-class articles, and six more lists. Special thanks to Neopeius for significantly working on some of the Timeline of spaceflight articles (specifically 1953, 54, 55, and most recently 56). Thanks also to Sotakarhu for table work in the latter.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list. Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:26, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

The Downlink Volume 3, Issue 5

	The Downlink	The WikiProject Spaceflight Newsletter
		2025 1 — 31 May

Volume 3 — Issue 5
Spaceflight Project • Project discussion • Members • Assessment • Open tasks • Popular pages • The Downlink
In the News On 6 May, Hakuto-R Mission 2 successfully entered lunar orbit. The Soviet probe Kosmos 482 crashed into the Indian Ocean after 53 years in orbit on 10 May. According to Roscosmos, this happened at 06:24 UTC.
Article of the month 2001 Mars Odyssey Artist's impression of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft 2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. The data Odyssey obtains is intended to help answer the question of whether life once existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Curiosity rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and Phoenix lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and reached Mars orbit on October 24, 2001, at 02:30 UTC (October 23, 19:30 PDT, 22:30 EDT). As of March 2025, it is still collecting data, and is estimated to have enough propellant to function until the end of 2025. It currently holds the record for the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth, ahead of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (served 14 years) and the Mars Express (serving over 20 years), at 23 years, 7 months and 26 days. As of October 2019 it is in a polar orbit around Mars with a semi-major axis of about 3,800 km or 2,400 miles.	Image of the month International Space Station after LF1 Starting with Zarya in November 1998, the assembly of the International Space Station continued on a regular basis until the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, which resulted in a nearly three-year pause from November 2002 to July 2005. This image shows the ISS following the installation of the second External stowage platform. ESP-2 was launched on 26 July 2005 on board Discovery as part of STS-114.
Members New Members: Animalculum (1 May) Luckytent (21 May) Number of active members: 209. Total number of members: 434. May Launches All times stated here are in UTC. See a current list: here. Starship — 8 Starlink Simulators (27 May at 23:36:28 UTC) (partial failure) Long March 4B — Tianwen-2 (28 May at 04:00 UTC) (success)	Article Statistics This data reflects values from 30 May 2025. Spaceflight articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 7 28 15 8 58 FL 3 4 4 11 FM 123 123 A 1 2 2 5 GA 11 27 33 55 1 127 B 15 84 200 220 1 520 C 45 163 583 784 32 1,607 Start 16 143 1,017 2,591 444 4,211 Stub 9 205 2,043 245 2,502 List 10 120 108 236 1 33 508 Category 1,266 1,266 Disambig 46 46 File 223 223 Portal 55 55 Project 109 109 Redirect 2 42 132 1,244 1,420 Template 527 527 NA 1 1 Other 28 28 Assessed 105 579 2,209 6,075 3,623 756 13,347 Unassessed 12 123 135 Total 105 579 2,209 6,087 3,623 879 13,482 Monthly Changes Since April 2025, three new mid-importance, nine new low-importance, and three new unknown-importance articles have been created, for a total of 15 new articles. There is also one less B-class article, 14 more C-class articles, six more Start-class articles, four less Stub-class articles, and three more lists.
Discuss & propose changes to The Downlink at The Downlink talk page. To unsubscribe from the newsletter remove your name from the Mailing list. Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:50, 11 June 2025 (UTC)