Talk:List of Long March launches

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Time Format

This page currently uses CST, allowing for DST. This can get a bit confusing, so I suggest that we switch to a universal format, such as GMT or UTC, without DST. This will eliminate confusion as to whether DST is in effect, and will also follow the example set by simmilar articles, such as Delta II launches, and List of Proton launches. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 22:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If there are no objections, I will implement this in the next week or so. I'll leave the local times in parenthesis, or a separate column. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 09:57, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fengbao 1 launches omitted

Hi! Why are Fengbao 1 launches omitted from the table? --Shibo77 (talk) 23:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because this is a list of Long March launches. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 00:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Fengbao 1 is part of the Long March series of carrier rockets. --Shibo77 (talk) 00:16, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is debatable. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 00:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning the reversion on the article List of Long March rocket launches

Hello! Why did you remove the first entry on the article: List of Long March rocket launches of the 16 November 1969 failure of the CZ-1 launch vehicle? Thanks! --Shibo77 (talk) 22:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not official recognized. Python eggs (talk) 05:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is not a good enough reason to remove something. I have re-added it. If Wikipedia only ran on "official" information, it would be biased and inaccurate. Also, the edits by Shibo77 which you reverted as undiscussed were discussed on Talk:List of Long March rocket launches. I am concerned by the fact you were apparently unaware of this when you reverted the edit. Your changing the article back to CST was the undiscussed change. I would suggest that next time you want to remove information from this article you discuss it beforehand. Thanks. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 13:20, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, my "revert the article back to CST" was not an undiscussed change, but User:Shibo66's change from CST to UTC on December 5 was not discussed. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Long_March_rocket_launches&diff=255937916&oldid=255337638 . The list was in CST in most of its lifespan, besides, it was me who created and actively maintain this list for years until very recently. Articles for Shuttle missions all use EST/EDT (see infoboxes in STS-125, STS-126...), why must Long March missions use UTC? Python eggs (talk) 14:16, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How, exactly, was his edit undiscussed. I had proposed the change on this page in September 2007, and there were no objections at the time, or in the following year. Your analogy to shuttle missions is flawed - they are individual flights, not a list of flights. List of Delta II launches, List of Delta IV launches, List of Ariane launches, List of R-7 launches, etc all use GMT or UTC. Can I please see evidence that your reversion was discussed before you implemented it. Either way, I hope that my edit has permanently resolved this, by using both time zones. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 15:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How did you convert between UTC and CST? China uses daylight saving between 1986 and 1991. Python eggs (talk) 02:18, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I placed a "([[China standard time|CST]])" notice as the "Local" column indicates launch times in CST, (CST=UTC+8, CDT=UTC+9), if you wish you could change the following entries to CDT? --Shibo77 (talk) 06:49, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1987-08-05<br/>06:39 || 15:39 (CDT)
1987-09-09<br/>07:15 || 16:15 (CDT)
1988-08-05<br/>07:29 || 16:29 (CDT)
1988-09-06<br/>20:30 || 1988-09-07<br/>05:30 (CDT)
1990-07-16<br/>00:40 || 09:40 (CDT)
1990-09-03<br/>00:53 || 09:53 (CDT)

I have corrected the above times for CDT. Such confusion is why I feel it is important to display times in a universal format instead of, or at least as well as, a local one. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 10:18, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Citations and sources are needed

Please be sure that all additions to the List of Long March launches article are verifiable. Any new items added to the article should have inline citations for each claim made, and List articles are no exception to the standard policy. As a courtesy to editors who may have added claims previously, before Wikipedia citation policy is what it is today, some of the existing unsourced claims have been tagged ^{{{citation needed}}} to allow some time for sources to be added. N2e (talk) 06:07, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your attention! I have planned to do a clean up to the whole list for some time already, but real life has prevented me from doing so. On the issue of citations, I agree that there should be more of them, especially on the recent launches (which I knew that Xinhua always have news releases on them). It would, however, be a bit difficult to put them on the early flights, if you can't really accept a "database" page as a citation for the whole list. Since I don't have time to do it right now, maybe you could offer help on this? (e.g. this article on yesterday's launch would be a good start: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-11/30/c_131279064.htm) Thanks! Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 08:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New launches are still being added without sources. All of the older launches will, eventually, need to be sourced. Whether a database page can be accepted or not will not be up to me, but just standard WP:V, WP:RS and WP:CS policy and guidelines. To me, as long as it is verifiable, has a full citation, and if the source is in a non-English language then the key bit should be translated to English and included in a "|quote=The quick brown fox jumped over the fence.(translation, from the Chinese (or whatever), then I would have no problem with the source. Cheers. N2e (talk) 02:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey good catch! The lack of sources for the new launches are my fault: I was lazy in finding English news reports for them; I will add them later (as well as for launches in the past few years). Unfortunately for older launches some work is required to find non-database sources, although I find this database both useful and verifiable (it is the work of an astrophysicist working in the spaceflight tracking arena at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, plus he have an extensive list of sources for them). I believe it could be accepted as a "verifiable source" (although given that I'm a rookie editor, I could be wrong). In any case, since the list have other issues (leading paragraph, format, data verification etc.), I will make my edits to a sandbox page at my user page, so that you guys can review my work before putting it back into this list. Cheers! Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 17:49, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I am a new editor of this topic, and I try to add the citations for the early missions. I try to mainly use the english news from the Xinhua News Agency, because of its state media background. But not all the missions have a offical english news, espically for the early launches. In this cases, I will use the chinese news of the Xinhua News Agency. Sometimes I can just find the news reported by some other media, and most of them were cited from the Xinhua, so I will use them as the citations until I find the original reports. I don't know if its suitable, so they can be deleted if everyone think they are inapposite.Wlrj (talk 13:33, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unify the format

Previously, the data of the topic were divided into four different forms, and the size or structure of each form was distinct. Base on the principle of oneness, I try to unify the forms into one. I combined the last three froms because they have the same structure. The biggest problem is that the first form is distinct from others, and its hard to choose the type of the form. Because the chinese edition of this topic is same as the second one, and rewrite the first form is an more easy job, so I try to rewrite the first form according to the format of the data after 1991. The first form has more details about the mission, I will add the extra message to the "Notes".Wlrj (talk 14:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose this change. The first section is part of a new format which is supposed to eventually unify across all comparable lists, and eliminates some issues the current format has with width on some monitors. I started converting it, but didn't have time and eventually stopped. The rest of the article should be converted to the new format, not the other way around. That said, I do agree with eliminating the split tables and sections; what has been done so far is an improvement, but the new format needs to be adopted. --W. D. Graham 14:21, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And I've just reverted you under WP:BRD. You're new here, so to clarify, if a user objects to an edit you're making, you should make an effort to discuss it first. Now, as I said before, I think unifying the list is a good idea, however I think it needs to go the other way. --W. D. Graham 15:36, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- I am very sorry that I didn't catch the rule here, I make an apology here again. You said that the first is a new format of the entire topic, and does it means I can rewrite the rest according to the first one?Wlrj 15:50, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was intended to be a new format for the topic, but it never really got implemented because I didn't have the time, and there aren't many editors who make large-scale edits to these lists. It is, of course, open for discussion if you feel the old format has advantages over the newer one, however I would be strongly in favour of standardising on the newer format, and I, personally, would have no problem with you implementing it across the whole article. I can't speak for others, but if anyone else had a strong opinion either way, they would probably have done something by now about the state the article was in before you started to improve it. --W. D. Graham 15:56, 11 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to implement the new format across the topic. But some informations need to be collected, especially the "serial number" and the "function" of the launches. I suggest the mission number of the Long March rocket family should be added to the new format, because the offical news always emphasize it after launches. It also help the readers to locate a single mission from the whole table.Wlrj (talk) 02:11, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a slight discrepancy in the numbers presented, which appears to be the result of China omitting a couple of failed launches from the total. I think in order to conform to WP:NPOV, we should not include anything either way; neither an official count, nor an accurate one. --W. D. Graham 08:05, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've completed a new list using the first format some time ago; it's available at here: User:Galactic Penguin SST/List of Long March Launches. So I'm taking this opportunity for you guys to approve moving the contents to here before I do it. There's one question though: User:N2e was aggressively asking for cites for every single launch in this table, and it seems that he do not accept table pages as sources (e.g. Jonathan McDowell's tables). Can someone have a talk with him so that we can work out and make a better table? Thanks! Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 08:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think he will accept that as long as it is still a reliable source.[1] McDowell is considered a reliable source, and meets the WP:SPS criteria, so I can't see an issue with using his list for most of it. --W. D. Graham 08:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, it was me who created this list a few years ago, with the current format. I don't oppose the move to a new format, but the launch number and local time fields should be kept. Python eggs (talk) 19:20, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody's talking about removing the local time field. The problem with the launch number field is that it is impossible to reconcile it with WP:NPOV and WP:V, as most "official" sources, including any counts in news articles, omit one or more early failures. --W. D. Graham 19:26, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As you said it is "official". We should keep the launch number field as it is official. Python eggs (talk) 16:45, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Following an "official" line would be forwarding a biased position based on primary sources. I think WP:NPOV and WP:PRIMARY would apply. --W. D. Graham 17:43, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are speaking the official being "bias". I failed to see how NPOV/PRIMARY apply this scenario. Plus, which "failed launch" was excluded, except those tests before DFH-1? Python eggs (talk) 21:11, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The 1969 attempt, as cited in the article. In any case since the inclusion criterion for this list is that it is a launch of a Long March rocket, the suborbital tests should also be included. And yes, if they are cherry-picking which early launches they include to hide the 1969 failure, then the official statistics are biased. --W. D. Graham 21:20, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First successful launch being number one, I see nothing wrong here. Python eggs (talk) 02:52, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But surely a count of all launches should include all launches, not just those after the first successful flight. I'd also be interested to see if subsequent suborbital flights, such as the Long March 1D test flight, are included. --W. D. Graham 15:11, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't oppose to include them in the list. But those early test flights were unnumbered. Python eggs (talk) 20:27, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your position. A flight is a flight, so surely if we are counting, we should start from the first one? --W. D. Graham 20:35, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New version of the list

I have made a new version of the list that should address quite a few problems with this list: User:Galactic Penguin SST/sandbox/List of Long March Launches. Comments on its problems are welcome, as I want to hear about it before moving it to here. Thanks! Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 21:15, 26 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing that there aren't any comments for 3.5 days I am going ahead and put the new version to here. Please comment if you have any objections. :) Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 05:02, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposal: Split page into decades

This page needs to be split into decades, as with other similar pages. The list is too long for one page. The main statistics charts can stay, as they are the overview, but the individual lists should be moved. Cheers UnknownM1 (talk) 16:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Serial number

Hello fellow Wikipedians, I have a question about the serial number of Long March rockets. I don't understand what the letter "F" represents. For example, Chang'e 4 was launched atop a Long March 3B rocket. It's the 53rd flight of Long March 3B. In this page, the serial number is "F-53". However, the flight number isn't 53. In Chinese, the flight number is "遥三十" which means "Telemetry No.30"(Y-30). Thanks！

P.S. The letter "Y" of Y-30 is the first letter of 遥三十's Pinyin(yáosānshí). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzhtju (talk • contribs) 17:42, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There may be fake or unverified launches in this article

There are some launches, such as FSW-0 No.0 in 1971, that may not exist. If they do please cite sources for verification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.183.212.131 (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any reason why you think the launch is fake?

See this list for example which cites sources for every single entry - the one launch entry you doubt is there, though it's in 1974: https://planet4589.org/space/gcat/data/launch/DF5.html

Galactic Penguin SST (talk) 04:44, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: Split page into decades - Resubmission

Several years have passed since this proposal has been first submitted I think that it's even more urgent to split this page since it's becoming less and less accessible. My proposal would be to follow the exact same format used for List of R-7 launches so with stats in the main page and a subpage for each launch decade.--Fm3dici97 (talk) 04:59, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Please check if it is OK.

P.S. I also inserted a table for different configurations. However, I am not sure if the format is good enough. If you think the format is quite messy, please let me know and I will change the configurations into "Long March 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/11". Timothytyy (talk) 01:34, 1 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The configuration plots in the main page seem a bit chaotic, maybe it's better to just keep the successes/failures ones in the main page and have the configuration plots just in the individual decade pages (again taking the R-7 or Atlas format as example) Fm3dici97 (talk) 07:26, 4 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]