Welcome to The Downlink, a project to distribute a monthly newsletter to members of WikiProject Spaceflight to keep them up to date with developments within the project and with its associated articles.
The Downlink can be delivered to a users talk page in an opt-in basis. If you wish to receive the newsletter, please add your username to the mailing list. To unsubscribe, just remove your username from the mailing list.
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.
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.
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
.png)
