Talk:List of Starship launches

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of Starship launches article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Archives: 1: 30 days

United States Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Lists Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Lists, an attempt to structure and organize all list pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.ListsWikipedia:WikiProject ListsTemplate:WikiProject ListsList
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Spaceflight Mid‑importance

	Spaceflight portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spaceflight, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of spaceflight on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SpaceflightWikipedia:WikiProject SpaceflightTemplate:WikiProject Spaceflightspaceflight
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Rocketry Mid‑importance

	Rocketry portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Rocketry, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of rocketry on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.RocketryWikipedia:WikiProject RocketryTemplate:WikiProject RocketryRocketry
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Text and/or other creative content from List of Starship upper stage flight tests was copied or moved into List of Starship launches. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Definition of launch failure in this article

Hello all! What constitutes a launch as a failure for the purposes of this article? Should this context be added to the article to give better clarification of why some may call launches a failure while others call them a success? Macota99 (talk) 09:12, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to know editors' rationale for each decision, be prepared for some book-length reading. The decisions were not made lightly and will not be changed. You can find the discussions in the archives of Talk:SpaceX Starship (the links are in the box at the top).

We could try to put a section in explaining it, but I suspect it would be futile to try to boil the decisions down to a sentence or two that all the editors would agree with. Fortunately, success/failure should be less contentious going forward, once payloads are being flown. Narnianknight (talk) 12:54, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To sumarize (so that you don't have to wade through ten articles of arguments):

(EDIT: Changed Orbit to Trajectory, as IFT-3 through IFT-5 were suborbital -Redacted II)

Destruction of vehicle means failure. This includes FTS (see IFT-2)

Failure to reach ~~orbit~~ the intended trajectory means failure.

Reaching a usable ~~orbit~~ trajectory, but not the desired one, is a partial failure.

Success is ~~right orbit~~ if the vehicle reaches the intended trajectory.

So, launch success is determined (for these cargoless flights) at the moment of SECO. Redacted II (talk) 22:41, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And to be clear, "orbit" here means intended trajectory. Narnianknight (talk) 13:27, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, my bad. Redacted II (talk) 15:23, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, "orbit" is a funky term. The IFT-3 through -6 vehicles, along with presumably IFT-7 in the new year (right? 2 didn't make it, but 3 did? I can't remember lol) reached orbital velocity, but didn't complete a full orbit around the earth, instead being in a sub-orbital trajectory while at orbital velocity. (This stuff is weird. Orbital mechanics is weird. How did we figure this out, as a species? Just, in general. Ignore this in future replies, I'm just rambling.) IFT-8 is supposedly going to be the first one to attempt catching the Starship upper stage (at least, according to Elon), so that'll be the first one to presumably go for the full orbital insertion. XFalcon2004x (talk) 20:47, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]