Talk:2014 in spaceflight

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Phobos biology experiment: I think this should be removed, as Fobos-Grunt is stuck in Earth LEO. RubenGarciaHernandez (talk) 22:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

IMHO I believe that we should wait until it's absolutely clear that Fobos-Grunt will never reach Mars. Russian engineers are still trying to communicate with it, and they have until early December to fix the spacecraft and send it on its way. --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 08:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Although Perth in Australia succeeded in communicating with Fobos-Grunt, they never managed to fire its rocket engine to leave Earth orbit. The mission is now off the grid. --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 17:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Upcoming/previous

I somewhat feel it's worth splitting the list into Upcoming launches and Previous launches, in that order. It'd require moderately more attention to make sure items were moved (unless there's a template to automate that?), but it'd make it a nicer resource to see what's happening in the near future. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dancraggs (talk • contribs) 11:41, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Orbital launch summary - Arianespace Soyuz as Russian?

Why Arianespace Soyuz is listed as a Russian launch? It's operated and launched by Arianespace for Arianespace clients so it should qualify as a European on By country list (and Russian on By family list, as it's a Russian family of rockets). SkywalkerPL (talk) 10:51, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• That list is still by the origin of the hardware, not who happened to be operating it. We don't consider Italy to have been a launch-capable country because they bought and launched a few American rockets; we don't consider Kazakhstan or Australia to be launch-capable despite providing launch sites for foreign rockets; Eurokot launches from Plestsk are still listed as Russian and not German. Trying to categorise launches into a specific nationality based on the operator, not the origin of the hardware, will overcomplicate the list and make it unnecessarily subjective; especially in cases where the launch goes through several subcontractors. At the end of the day the hardware is more important than the politics. --W. D. Graham 18:11, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I was talking about operators, not manufacturers - cause if I see "Orbital launch summary" then it's quite clear that it's a summary of who performed the launch and owned launch vehicle, I'm not looking at the "orbital launch system manufacturers summary" or anything alike. If the list really goes by manufacturers - it should be clearly pointed out in the article. "At the end of the day the hardware is more important than the politics" - it's not politics, it's commerce. And we shouldn't care of what might be subjectively more important or not, but rather: what are facts. SkywalkerPL (talk) 07:27, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
    • The fact is that the list is grouped by manufacturer, so the rest of the argument is moot. --W. D. Graham 17:46, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
      • As said - would be good to point it out in an article itself, not just talk page, cause otherwise it's far from clear. SkywalkerPL (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2014 (UTC)