Talk:Comparison of orbital launcher families

Initial feedback

What is your criteria for including, for example Atlas A and G in the same category but not Atlas I. And where do such precise payload capacities come from for such a wide range of systems? I also think that including launch outcomes should not be done without discussion, since most of the numbers are questionable and it is impossible to present any data without some combination of original research, inconsistency, unverifiability, bias and inaccuracy. --GW… 14:56, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

All data are issued from Wikipedia. No original research. It's only a simplification and compilation.

All launchers that shares the same base (as described in relatives articles) are in the same family (like Atlas A and G, but not Ariane 4 and 5) : but my list must be perfected. If you think that a launcher is alone or is a family, please say it.

About the launches count, data are mainly copied from Wikipedia pages.

Finally, perfection doesn't exist, and bias and inaccuracy are inevitable. In French, we say "La perfection n'est pas de ce monde. Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. Qui veut faire l'ange, fait la bête".

--FlyAkwa (talk) 17:51, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I like it! It matches well with my own list (I split Ariane 1/2/3, Delta 2000/3000/E, Atlas-Centaur/GHI, Thorad-Agena, Long March 2CD/2F/3/4, Soyuz/Molniya/Voskhod/Vostok, Titan I/II/III/IV, and Tsyklon 2/3). You missed Saturn I. You will need to make any numeric data like number of launches numerically sortable. I would remove cost from this table as it will be hard to verify and is less applicable to a whole family. --IanOsgood (talk) 21:21, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done Saturn I/IB added.

 Done All numeric columns appear to be sortable. Well done! --IanOsgood (talk) 22:37, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks :) --FlyAkwa (talk) 22:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Much better than Comparison of orbital launch systems. That table considers any variation to be a different launcher. This matrix is much easier to read and understand. If there is any confusion as to whether a specific "family" should be split, that can be considered on the talk page. How can we take a vote on whether to change the matrix or create a new article with this matrix? user:mnw2000 13:59, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

They are both good tables. I like tracking reliability and total launches by family, but it is also instructive to see which members of a family get the most use. For example, if you only tracked families and their max payloads, you'd think the Atlas V was a very popular heavy lifter, whereas its lightest configuration (401) gets the most use. And as GW points out, it can be hard to figure out family groupings. --IanOsgood (talk)

Thank you for your comments. Don't hesitate to edit my table.

To avoid any dispute, the idea, as discussed up in this page, is to create a new page, distinct from current list. Its origin and its goal are different.--FlyAkwa (talk) 20:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I also agree that there are both benefits and negatives in conflating families into single lines. For some comparisons it's better, for others it's worse. Jeffsapko (talk) 08:58, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The idea is that this shortest list exists together with the actual complex long list. --FlyAkwa (talk) 17:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Just my two cents but, Families have a name, "Angara, Falcon, Delta..." Variations have alpha numeric designations, "1,2,3 X, XH, XX, I, II, III, IV... So what is presented here is really not as valuable as it could be. However the stub pages would have to be written in such a way that a family page exists between this one, and the final stub page. ie. Full List--Family--Stub, This list should really be very short when compared to the full list. Again just my two cents. 160.149.1.37 (talk) 18:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC) Darren Hensley, 12:54 2 Mar 2012

I'm afraid I don't understand your idea... --FlyAkwa (talk) 21:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Article needs substantial citations

This article has been recently created, as a result of a discussion and apparent consensus to do so. That is fine as far as having the new article exist.

However, per WP:V we should not be sourcing assertions merely with other Wikipedia articles, nor should we have substantive assertions that are unsourced by reliable secondary sources with inline citations. I have tagged just a few of the assertions that need cited with ^{{{citation needed}}}. Does anyone have a good book that might cite a large amount of info on the older/historical launcher families? N2e (talk) 14:17, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Dear N2e, I will be happy that you complete cleverly this article, and find references when it's really needed.
But stop your destructive work on the article and absurd fundamentalism with yours "citation needed", "citation to be completed", etc. else I will systematically undo your modifications. --FlyAkwa (talk) 12:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Please be careful FlyAkwa, and assume good faith. I suspect we are both working quite hard to improve the encyclopedia. I know you have worked very hard on producing this new comparative article on rocket launcher families, and I very much assume you want it to be a quality article that withstands the test of time.

However, it is not enough for any editor to merely make bare assertions in the English Wikipedia. WP:Verifiability is not an optional policy; it is, rather, a core Wikipedia policy. As for who needs to do the work or ensuring citations are added, policy is unambiguous, it is up to the editor who wants to retain material in Wikipedia to get it cited with verifiable sources; it is NOT WP policy that every editor who stumbles upon significant unreferenced material must stop their lives and endeavor to improve THAT particular article, nor ignore that the article has many missing sources. I add a lot of source citations to Wikipedia, as I did on this article to the Krunichev citation in the past 24 hours. But Wikipedia has millions of unsourced claims, so sometimes I simply leave a request and move on. It seems to me to be a simple courtesy to flag such instances for a month or two to see if "the community" cares enough about an article to fix it before material is deleted from Wikipedia for being unsourced. Cheers. N2e (talk) 22:02, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Article continues to be, in very large part, unsourced. I am challenging a number of claims, and have politely tagged those with {{citation needed}}. Cheers. N2e (talk) 15:09, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

This is not an article, it is a table. It tabulates information from the individual articles. If readers want citations for the data on any individual rocket, they should click the article on that rocket. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Krunichev source for the Angara launcher family

Thanks FlyAkwa for finding an English translation of the Russian source that supports all the Angara launcher family claims. I had earlier today attempted to improve the original Khrunichev citation by adding standard citation metadata, but did not locate the English-language source URL that you came up with. So thanks for finding that. N2e (talk) 22:04, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Successes

This article was created to attempt to redress the disagreements arising from the merger of the individual comparison articles. I have just noticed that it includes separate counts of successful and total launches in this article; this has been unilaterally restored and was not part of the compromise proposal (which was simply a table with less entries). I'd like to make it clear that I do not believe that this was a deliberate attempt to create a POV fork, but since this was a point of contention no change should have been made without discussion, and no discussion was held regarding this point. In the absence of a consensus to establish a system for determining a neutral, consistent and verifiable definition of a successful launch, which can be reliably sourced, these figures should not have been restored. I have removed them, hopefully we can discuss the issue here, and come up with a better way of presenting this data, without reopening old disputes and disagreements. --W. D. Graham 22:03, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm the author of this list, made after the long list of Orbital Launch System. The goal of this list is to be smarter and simpler.

As wrote in the legend : "S/L : Successful launches (that reach space) and total launches (that lift-off)" : it's a simple choice.

You are free to add other columns (such as "successful lauches that don't reach space") as you want, but, please, don't vandalize the page because the definition choosen is not yours.

--FlyAkwa (talk) 10:09, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

So you feel that because you wrote it, you have some kind of right to determine what is and isn't included, and anything else is "vandalism"? I was wrong, this is a POV fork. Now if you want to include a record of how many launches reached orbit then fine, but don't represent them as "successful". A successful launch is one which reasches a usable orbit. By your definition Mars 96 was successful despite getting nowhere near Mars as the result of a launch failure. Now I would question the relevance of such a column, but we could switch to that as a compromise until such a time as we can reach an agreement. But if you're going to take that attitude that anything not conforming to your views is vandalism, then it will be difficult to reach an amicable situation. --W. D. Graham 12:11, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Dear WDGraham,

I don't have some kind of right to determine what is and isn't included, but you don't have more rights. If you have a good reason to delete a simple correct data, please expose it.

Because it's interesting to know if a rocket is rather successful or not, then the column "Success (that reach space)" (that is a try to be neutral) has been chosen. Of course, you can add (and fill) "Success (that don't reach space)", "partial success (that reach space)", etc, but the table will be too large.

As said, I will be very pleased that you correct false data, that you add interesting data or interesting columns, but not that you delete correct data.

I don't remember what failed during Mars96, and even if the rocket and/or the probe reach space. But if the rocket reach space (in a large appreciation) and put the probe and its departure stage on orbit, we can say that the launch was a success, but the Mars insertion was a failure. If the rocket didn't reach the space or orbit (as one of the stage failed), then the launch is a failure. It's really simple.

If you want, we can choose a very large appreciation, that if the rocket reach space and/or orbit (depending of the mission), it's a success. The fact that the rest of the mission is a failure don't affect the "launch success".

We can also consider that, while the payload is not lost (by the fault of the rocket), the launch is a success.

--FlyAkwa (talk) 12:27, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Dear WDGraham, I just see your last edit "RS/TL : Launches reaching space (regardless of outcome) and total launches (that lift-off)." : I think it's a good idea.

As I said previously, we can also consider if the payload is lost or not.

--FlyAkwa (talk) 12:49, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the best solution would be five columns: TL, RS, SO, RO and RT; "Total launches", "Reached space", "intentionally suborbital", "reached orbit", and "reached target orbit", allowing anyone viewing the list to come to their own decision about which launches are successful and which are not. This will take up more space, but not too much. Separate columns would also allow independent sorting be each definition. --W. D. Graham 13:03, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I have split the "launches" column into "RS" and "TL". Do you think it's possible to split into RS, SO and RO ? --FlyAkwa (talk) 21:24, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I am agnostic, for now, over how many columns the table is broken into to show various degrees of successful or partially-sucessful or unsuccessful launches. However, whatever claims about those numbers that are added to the article, each assertion must have a citation to a reliable secondary source. Most of those numbers have no such citation. Wikipedia editors do not get to make the distinction on our own, from our heads, or from claims that might, or might not, be in other Wikipedia articles.

If an editor wants an assertion to stand in the encyclopedia, then cite it. Cheers. N2e (talk) 22:22, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Why so complicated?

If the launch vehicle places the payload where it was intended to go and the payload separates (or not) as intended, the launch was a success. If the payload winds up somewhere else or fails to separate (or not) as intended, the launch was not a success, even if the payload is in orbit. Once the launch is complete, the performance of the payload does not determine the success of the launch already completed. Don't over think it.Magneticlifeform (talk) 02:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Columns RS through RT are about as useless as tits on a boar, as if you even have that kind of information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.70.15.248 (talk) 03:21, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I prefer a smart and light table. But, as you can see in history and talk page, there is some fundamentalist who like complicate things, add "reference needed" everywhere, etc.

I made this page to avoid problems of definitions and complexity of the other older article "List of orbital launchers systems", but unfortunately, same guys are always here.

After a certain delay, periodically, I delete the unjustified edits...

--FlyAkwa (talk) 17:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Magneticlifeform's simple definition of success or failure for this kind of overview table, even if it can lead to a bit of ambiguity (e.g. whether to blame Columbia disaster on the launcher or payload spacecraft). Details (which are sometimes difficult to adequately source) belong into articles on particular vehicles or families. --bonzi (talk) 09:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The extra columns are a compromise that no party is happy with, but until an objective, quantitative and consistent measure for launch success can be determined and reliably sourced, they are a necessary evil. In principle I fully agree with Magneticlifeform and Bonzi (although possibly with the additional stipulation that the payload be undamaged), however in practise this is difficult to source consistently, as some organisations such as ILS are quite open about their failures, whereas others such as ISRO try to manipulate the statistics to reduce the apparent number of failures. Bonzi's view that "details (which are sometimes difficult to adequately source) belong into articles on particular vehicles or families." is one which I have held for a while now, and is why I believe that we should simply remove the subjective information, and allow users to make up their own minds from the articles themselves - just list the number of launches, no more. --W. D. Graham 10:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

As it appears that WDGraham is alone with its opinion, the extra-columns (full of CN) will be deleted. --FlyAkwa (talk) 23:27, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

With respect, FlyAkwa, your handling of this discussion has been contemptible. You have been nothing but uncivil and unwilling to compromise. By your own admission this article is nothing but a POV fork which you have been trying to claim ownership of because you didn't like the way the discussion went on the other page. That is not how Wikipedia works - nobody owns pages, nobody can enforce their point-of-view just because they were the first one to create a content fork and a narrow majority (which hasn't even been demonstrated here) doesn't rule. We need to find a solution which is acceptable to all parties. Don't try to misrepresent my position - I don't want the extra columns here any more than you do - they are a compromise - and a pretty crap one at that - because no agreement could be reached. Now if you're backing out of that compromise, I would suggest we remove all mention of successful launches, and just insert a count of how many times each rocket has flown. That, or leave it as it is until we come up with something better and other editors agree with it. --W. D. Graham 11:38, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Crew capability?

Since man-rating is such a big deal for launch systems, and distinguishes some medium lift systems, such as the Soyuz, from larger cargo-only systems, such as the Zenit. I would think a compact way to show this would be a "Crew capability" column, containing either numbers indicating succesful vs human-killing launches (at launch - Columbia got to space mostly intact), or "cargo only" (e.g. Titan) or "proposed" (as per the Atlas V). There may be better terms, but I think this is important info for comparison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.253.56.104 (talk) 14:18, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of useless columns

Due to extremist fussy peoples, lot of useless columns have been added, months ago. Theses are TL, RS, OL, RO, RT...
This classification is excessively complex and unmaintainable.
Unless there is real good reasons to keep them, I will delete columns in excess to keep only "Total Launch" and "Success launch", as defined by various source sites and launch companies.
--FlyAkwa (talk) 09:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

With respect, opening with an ad hominem argument is hardly civil and isn't going to get you very far. That said, my position is unchanged, I don't like having multiple columns, but until we can accept a consistent, unbiased and common-sense definition of "success", we must have either quantitative metrics or none at all. --W. D. Graham 17:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that there is an excessive number of columns, but I also remember the edit wars about defining "success," which were what ultimately lead to the large number of columns.

I will, however, propose combining the "total launches" and the (total number of) "orbital launches" columns. (There are only a handful of vehicles for which these columns are different). For readers who don't understand the difference, this is slightly confusing, while for readers who do understand the difference, it is wildly confusing, since many of these vehicle families have thousands of suborbital launches which are not included in this tally.Geoffrey.landis (talk) 18:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

-- note: this is now done; see below. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 14:25, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I also continue to be dubious about the "launches reaching space" column-- this column is to account for vehicles that fail, but didn't fail until after they passed 100 km. The only people who have ever seriously proposed "reaching space but not orbit" as any kind of definition of success are the people who continue to try to assert the first flight of Energia as a success. There are something like 50,000 launches listed here; it seems to me a bit of a misdirection to have a column whose use is entirely for justifying a single flight-- can't we just put this in a note, along with the handful of other flights that are ambiguous as to success criteria (I can think of three other borderline cases). Geoffrey.landis (talk) 13:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

FlyAkwa and Geoffrey.landis—Well, it's over six months later and I see there are really way too many columns in this table. Moreover, the chance of both 1) finding sources for all of the incredible detail claimed in the many columns, and even if a source is found, keeping track of which of many sources might support which of many claims made in the many columns, would be a Sysyphean task.

Case in point, I just endeavored to support the citation needed tag on the Falcon 1. Did a little research, found an article that supported total launches and total successful launches. (Note: source articles like this are less common than you might think; they can be very hard to find for many of these rockets.). Seemed hopeless to find all the sources required to support each of the many other claims. So I left that row only partially sourced, and left the citation needed tags by many of the specific claims that are yet unsourced. BTW, I did not explicitly invite WD Graham as I am aware that WDGraham has retired from editing Wikipedia.

I will endeavor to start a discussion on column reduction soon. Not sure if a one step or two step process of proposal/consensus is best, as I don't know how far apart the editors working this article would be on which columns are essential in a Wikipedia summary table. Let me know if you have any input. Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:46, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I'm happy to see some support to my ideas, some 2 years after I created this page. Thanks to Geoffrey.landis for its work. I'm also happy to discovers that my enemy on numerous pages, WDGraham, has retired from editing Wikipedia. I always support the deletion of numerous columns about "success", "half success", "quart success", "perhaps success" etc. I think we could only use the official version of the launch company, that is "success", "partial success" and "failure". Regards. --FlyAkwa (talk) 21:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

FlyAkwa, I got busy and didn't follow up. So sounds like we are in agreement on significant reduction of the columns, but before I start a proposal, let's discuss your last comment. I'm thinking it will be very difficult to find any sort of agreement in the sources for launches on "partial success"; I'm not saying that we might never find a source that indicates a launch was a partial success, just that in order for a table like this to have comparability between LVs, I think we would need to believe we will have sources for many LVs, across the global launch industry, from sources written in many languages. This, I think, we won't have. So I'd recommend dropping only to "success" and "failure" columns. And even with those, I've observed that only rarely do sources give the total launches to date, and so the numbers in those columns will often be out of date in this article, at least for current launch vehicles. What do you think? N2e (talk) 07:23, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Colors

Please use more distinctable colors. Active and Development are rarely distinguishable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.22.116.119 (talk) 07:19, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Falcon 9

Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 v1.1 are technically the same rocket family. v1.1 launched successfully two times, it's time to merge the data. Any objections? Dvasilev (talk) 22:14, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:53, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Since nobody seems to be objecting, I consolidated the two lines into one. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 17:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Changing some Formats

The acronyms in the column headings were awkward. The columns are wide, and the heading is three rows high, so I saw no reason not to spell out the acronyms- it didn't make the table any longer. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:16, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

In general, the same references are used in all the columns. It only makes the table larger to put a separate reference or citation needed on every single figure, rather than one set of citations for each rocket family. So I am consolidating the references into a column. This actually compresses the table width a bit, since multiple "citation needed" are compressed into one, and will make it easier to follow. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 18:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I just saw this discussion section. Please take a look at a substantive comment I added to the Deletion of useless columns Talk page section above. That will illustrate at least one reason why the individual claims often need citations. With all the absurdly rediculous number of columns here, there is no way to tell which source might support which claim in the various columns within a row. What is quite certain however, is almost none of the sources will not make the distinction between all the various columns listed here; in fact, I cannot think of one source in space-related media, that has ever clarified all of those details in a single source.

So in the end, if we are going to keep all the superfine detail columns, I quite honestly cannot figure out how we would illustrate verifiability for the typical reader without having sources in multiple columns. So there may be some more work here. But maybe we can discuss, and gain consensus, on column reduction first (see above). Cheers. N2e (talk) 01:02, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Total Launches now = Total Orbital Launches

There were only two vehicles in this listing for which entries in the "total launches" and "orbital launches" columns were not identical. And one of those was Saturn 1, for which the numbers were only there since I put them in earlier this afternoon (it had six suborbital tests). Given that this article is about orbital launchers, I propose merging these columns into one, listing only orbital launch attempts, making the fact that the list does not include suborbital launches clear in the discussions, and putting suborbital launches (for those vehicles which had suborbital launches) in the notes section. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 02:53, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

--OK, I have now consolidated the columns into 1 (and in the process, found a couple of spots where the data was outdated). This brings the table into a little clearer focus.... and also brings out the fact that much of the data haven't been filled out. For many of the vehicles, the data only lists the total number of launches, with no success data at all, much less the detailed parsing of success called for in the three columns. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 04:02, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, good on you. There are many more columns that appear excessive to me, so more work to be discussed, consensus achieved, and then slimmed down. Thanks for taking care of that one expeditiously last September! N2e (talk) 00:50, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Add Ariane 6, and Vulcan (done)

Please add Ariane 6. --Kizar (talk) 18:50, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, Anyone can edit. So feel free to get right on it. Just be sure to have a source citation that supports any statements you make about that rocket, or any rocket you add. N2e (talk) 01:05, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

, ... and here we are, a few weeks later, and there is yet another rocket to add: Vulcan (rocket) has been unveiled by United Launch Alliance. It too will be added when some volunteer editor cares to take the time to do so, with citation(s). N2e (talk) 07:07, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Y (not by me) Rod57 (talk) 08:38, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Blue Origin

Shouldn't Blue Origin be on this list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmodood (talk • contribs) 01:33, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, let's add New Glenn. - Rod57 (talk) 10:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Column values for families need ranges - which columns make sense here

The payload columns and cost columns need ranges to cater for most families, or perhaps columns here should be limited to those (eg stats) that apply to the entire family ? Comparison of orbital launch systems says this families list is intended to be simpler than that one. Before deleting, eg cost, column we should add that column to Comparison of orbital launch systems ? - Rod57 (talk) 08:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

They definitely need ranges, Rod57. But sources are hard to find. And getting all the cost/price numbers here to be comparable here is clearly a wicked problem, not really amenable to an explicit and final fix. Best we can do is make it better, at some margin or other. I wrote more about this below, in a new section today. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:44, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Falcon Trans-Lunar injection

Anybody know where to find a source giving trans-lunar injection payload capabilities for the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy? With the potential of Orion launching on a commercial rocket this seems needed. They must exists somewhere. Grey Wanderer (talk) 00:59, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Article rework

This list is currently a useful but messy mix of rocket families, types, and configurations. Since there is another more detailed list comparing orbital systems it seems to me this list needs to be standardized to include only families, the highest level of categorization, so that fair comparisons can be made. Items listed should link to the rocket (family) page. I would be willing to undertake this, but would like some input before beginning such a task. Grey Wanderer (talk) 18:49, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Cost and price

The article is a mishmash of mixed figures and inconsistencies. Cost is generally different than price. The cost is the total cost, or average cost, or marginal cost (all different) to the manufacture to make the rocket, and launch it operationally. The price is what the buyer (launch service user who contracts for a launch) pays.

The column heading says "Cost". But the top of the article says "Cost: Price for a launch at this time, in millions of US$" confusing the issue.

This should be clarified. Moreover, we only rarely know the "cost" to the manufacturer/launch service provider. We often don't know. Such info is often proprietary.

And although we can know it more often than cost, we oftentimes do not know the "price" of a launch either. It is often times only known in the (proprietary) launch contract between the launch service provider and the buyer of the launch.

Sometimes, we get published (standard, or "catalog") prices on the web. SpaceX began this practice circa 2010 with the Falcon 9, and continued it with the Falcon Heavy. United Launch Alliance began to publish their Atlas V catalog prices in circa 2017 or so. But most orbital launcher families do not do that. Moreover, even then, LSPs contract for special prices with particular buyers, even for a "standard" launch service offering. E.g., the initial launches of Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy were cheaper, and the initial/early launches of Ariane, BFR, Angara, etc. will likely be so as well.

In short, a single column of numbers on a mismash of cost or price info from a variety of sources are, quite simply, not comparable. We mislead the Wikipedia reader by showing them in a column the way we do right now, as if they are comparable. N2e (talk) 14:30, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

(Sometimes, it's even worse, 'cause the number in the table is merely a speculated cost or price on some future launch system that may or may not ever fly and for which the date of first flight is uncertain. E.g., Ariane 6 in the article currently has a speculated price/cost, but Super Heavy + Starship does not, even though SpaceX has stated such a speculative cost number.)

Some families (eg Atlas V or Delta IV) have such different configurations that price needs to be a wide range here. It might better to have price information against each configuration in the other systems list. Prices are easier to source for specific launches or specific configurations. - Rod57 (talk) 13:20, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Delta IV seems to include Delta IV Heavy but Falcon Heavy is separate from Falcon 9...

Since this article is families why don't we merge Falcon 9 with Falcon Heavy, or should we split out Delta IV Heavy ? If there is a rational reason for having both the families and systems lists (not just a POV fork) then can we make the criteria clear? I'd like to merge Falcon Heavy into Falcon 9, but would we loose any data that is not in the systems list ? As I said in another comment - many numeric columns (eg payloads) need ranges for families. - Rod57 (talk) 13:15, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Sort anomaly with Falcon 9 total launches

When sorting by total launches Falcon 9 with 82 is put at the zero end instead of in the correct place. Attempting to investigate, it seems the 82 comes from {{Falcon rocket statistics|F9launch}} which I don't know how to fix. I've tried to ask mfb on Template_talk:Falcon_rocket_statistics. - Rod57 (talk) 13:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Comma used as thousand separator,

Please consider refraining of using a thousand separator.

Recommendation of ISO 31-0 accepts both comma and dot, point as a decimal separator. therefore it recommends no character, or space for lasrge digits.

Numbers consisting of long sequences of digits can be made more readable by separating them into groups, preferably groups of three, separated by a small space. For this reason, ISO 31-0 specifies that such groups of digits should never be separated by a comma or point, as these are reserved for use as the decimal sign. For example, one million (1000000) may be written as 1 000 000.

Regards, G — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.67.13.64 (talk) 19:53, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Cost

Should the cost line be adjusted for inflation, or similar measure? Seems like it'd be helpful given the time frames involved. Ends up looking like a shuttle launch was several times the cost of a Saturn V for example

Sorting issue

When sorting by 'Total launches' I noticed an abnormality.

Three launch families (Jielong 1, Zuljanah, and Hyperbola-1) have either 1 launch in the case of the first two or 2 launches in the case of the last one. However when sorting by number of total launches these appear in the middle of several launch vehicle families that have yet to have a single launch attempt.

Since I am uncertain on how to fix the issue, I decided to just post this note. I suspect that at least some of launch families in development might have the potential for the same issue once they make an launch attempt. AmigaClone (talk) 10:35, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I think this was due to the sorting tags for carriers under development; I've eliminated these tags for such future launch vehicles, but there may be other sorting issues (which will have to wait for another day.)

cheers, Spotty's Friend (talk) 20:08, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

How about splitting retired orbital launcher families into a separate table?

Retired entries will not change. Active and underdevelopment entries do change. I propose a second section to this article for "retired orbital launchers" so the primary section can focus on orbital launchers that are active and under development. It would allow for easier sorting.

user:mnw2000 11:05, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Care to do the honors?

Spotty's Friend (talk) 20:05, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Just opened this article again after some time and noticed this change. I am very much against this, since now it's impossible to compare retired rockets with currently flying ones (for example by sorting a single table). @Spotty's Friend: Since there has not been a real discussion on this, would you mind reverting this change and opening a proper proposal? --Ita140188 (talk) 13:12, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Here's a new one: a private liquid-propellant rocket from Chinese company Space Pioneer

Here's a new one: a privately-developed liquid-propellant rocket from Chinese company Space Pioneer: Tianlong-1 Have only located a high-level description of the launch vehicle so far, but the sources I've found are in the Space Pioneer article. Cheers. N2e (talk) 11:16, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Layout - eg grouping or splitting into families - definition of family

Clearly many people who have edited this has not much knowledge of what a family of launch vehicles actually is and so I see rockets like titan IV and atlas V which are not separate launch vehicle families but are specific launch vehicles, anyone who sees this, please try to fix this disappointing article. 109.78.223.172 (talk) 16:32, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi. First, thanks for merging the Angara 1.2 and Angara A5 entries since these are clearly variations of a common architecture so should be rightfully listed as a single "family" entry on this list (though you should have merged the launch numbers of the two vehicles as well.)

Second, the question of whether many of the other entries should also be merged is not at all clear cut. For example, though Atlas V retains the historical 'Atlas' nomenclature, it instead uses RD-180 which argues for the proposition that it (along with Atlas III) should be treated differently than the prior Atlas vehicles (additionally, considering the rather significant alteration in the first stage tankage between Atlas III and Atlas V, these two perhaps should be listed separately as well). As another example, Delta IV first stage (I assume this is what you referred to above since the retired Titan IV has already been merged with even older Titans) uses RS-68 hydrolox engine instead of RP-1 engines used on earlier Deltas, this difference argues for a separate entry on this list. Finally, the Chinese company Orienspace's Gravity-1 launcher is a planned solid rocket, while its planned Gravity-2 may use liquid propellant; this suggests that though both planned carriers would bear the "Gravity" name, they are not made of interchangeable parts (my own conception of a rocket 'family') like the Angara rocket family. And I think we can safely say that the Chinese Long March 'family' is a historical rocket family, but operationally a CZ-1 from 1970 is basically a totally different rocket from a CZ-5 or CZ-11 from the present day.

In summary, you are right to suggest mreging some entries in the present list (two possibilties that I can think of are [A] merging Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, [B] merging CZ-6, 6A, 6C, 7, 7A, 8, 8A etc); however, many other entries, if merged with still other launch vehicle entries bearing the same historical name, would actually decrease the quality of information here. Though I myself have updated many recent launch outcomes on this list, most of the entries here were added by other editors, and some care and consideration should be taken before revamping the contributions by past editors; instead of criticizing contributors' general lack of knowledge (which in my case may be accurate), please carefully add your expertise. Cheers, Spotty's Friend (talk) 01:37, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying but in a simple sentence, your opinion does not matter, even if the long March 1 for example is completely different to the long March 8, it is still by name and by document, within the long March family, this can be said for 90% of the rockets on this comparison. Currently I can not edit this page as I am stressfully editing the “comparison of orbital launch systems” page as I find it more interesting so if you have the time please fix this hard-to-look-at Wikipedia page. You should also consider changing the layout as it isn’t great with the references on one side? and the “payload to LEO” which makes no sense since many different rockets can lift a drastically different amount compared to others. 109.78.223.172 (talk) 20:55, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Ha Ha! It is true that my personal opinion is of little consequence in this matter, but the collective actions and opinions of other users over time is of paramount importance and most of the existing entries on here were added by these others; I've only squatted on this page the past couple of years due to my interest in updating the number of successful launches of the various carriers (the list on Orbital Launch System Wiki only updates total number of launches with no regard to success/failure). The one time that I tried to make some minor format change on this list (segregating retired launchers into a separate list), I received push back fairly quickly, which I tried to ignore by laying low.

Now in your opinion, each entry on this list should include all carriers that bear the same root name, so there would be one "Saturn family" (not Saturn 1+1B, and a separate Saturn V), one "Long March family", one "Ariane Family", one "Falcon Family" etc.; however, the many past editors who originally added the list items apparently do not agree with your assessment, and, even if in your opinion these individuals were idiots, their apparent opinion should not be ignored and Wiki policy is that material change which may be controvsersial should not be effected by individual fiat

I understand that this list, even after some consolidations (e.g. Falcon 9 + Falcon Heavy and CZ 6+7+8) would remain ugly to you and you'd want wholesale consolidation in accordance with your somewhat rigid ideas on the appropriate categories for this list. So my advice to you is just to ignore this list as an irrelevant one reserved for us idiots and concentrate your attention and efforts on the Comparison of Orbital Launch Systems Wiki. When I find the time I'll try to consolidate some items on here so long as it seem non-controversial

Cheers! Spotty's Friend (talk) 20:07, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

To make merges or splits uncontroversial, we'll need to agree on the definition of family. If that's not possible I argue for only one level of merges of individual launchers. So LM-4 (=4A+4B+4C), but probably not LM-2+3+4. - Rod57 (talk) 02:47, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Why are Long March 2, 3 and 4 lumped together here

Why are Long March 2, 3 and 4 lumped together, (but LM-6,7,8 have separate rows) ? There is no 2-3-4 article. They use the same propellants, but that's not enough to put them in the same family. Same engines ? Same builder ? - Rod57 (talk) 02:35, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

LM-3A says "LM-3A is a 3-stage launch vehicle developed on the basis of LM-3 and LM-2C. Its third stage is powered by cryogenic propellants: liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen." Maybe it is first 2 stages of LM-3 and 3rd stage from LM-2C ?? - Rod57 (talk) 18:07, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

LM-2 says "Long March 2D and Long March 4 were developed by the Shanghai Academy of Space Flight Technology (SAST), while all others are developed by CALT." and "The designations Long March 2A and Long March 2B were originally applied to design studies of Long March 2 derivatives for geostationary payloads. Long March 2A would use a cryogenic third stage, and Long March 2B a hypergolic one. Neither design was finalized. The 2A design was adopted as the Long March 3." - Rod57 (talk) 18:49, 10 November 2024 (UTC)