The Downlink's first run was from December 2010 to March 2011, after which it was revived from October 2020 to October 2021. The second revival (volume 3 onwards) will mostly continue with the second volume's style. Depending on how many editors participate during and following volume 3, volume 4 onwards may see significant changes to format and style.
This special issue is intended to cover the most important changes from the last issue to 31 December 2023. The next special issue will be published some time in January 2025. After that, special issues will only be published for significant events (decided by consensus at The Downlink talk page). My apologies for the length.
In the News
2021
The DART mission was launched on 24 November. It successfully impacted Dimorphos on 26 September 2022.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December. An international partnership between NASA, ESA, and CSA, it reached its destination in January 2022. Its first image was made public on 11 July 2022.
On 11 December, the Hakuto-R Mission 1 was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket. Planned to land on the moon in April 2023, a failure in the propulsion system resulted in the mission being terminated on 12 May 2023. It crashed into the moon on 25 April 2023.
In December, NASA announced that the InSight lander had ceased communications with Earth. The mission was declared over on the 21st.
Dinkinesh was revealed to be a binary pair of asteroids on 1 November following a flyby by the Lucy spacecraft.
Starship flight test 2 successfully saw Starship reach space, but the first stage exploded shortly after separation and the second stage was lost after eight minutes.
The United States broke the record for most launches by a nation (108). The record was previously held by the Soviet Union since 1982.
The Apollo 15 postal covers incident, a 1972 NASA scandal, involved the astronauts of Apollo 15, who carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers into space and to the Moon's surface on the Lunar ModuleFalcon. Some of the envelopes were sold at high prices by West German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger, and are known as "Sieger covers". The crew of Apollo 15—David Scott, Alfred Worden, and James Irwin—agreed to take payments for carrying the covers; though they returned the money, they were reprimanded by NASA. Amid much press coverage of the incident, the astronauts were called before a closed session of a Senate committee and never flew in space again.
Image of the Month Image for November 2024. Decision was made unilaterally.
Apollo 4 Liftoff
The Apollo 4 unmanned mission lifts off from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. This was the first flight for the enormous Saturn V rocket that would eventually take humans to the Moon.
Number of active members: 175.
Total number of members: 399.
Launches Since Previous Downlink All times stated here are in UTC. See current lists: here, here, and here. Due to the length of this issue, only a few launches are included here.
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Newsletter contributor: Ships&Space
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