Talk:Heavy-lift launch vehicle

2005

DR's comments prefaced with *:

I removed an unneeded disamb paragraph (no need for it, Heavy Lify Launch Vehicle is pretty specific) and fixed the wikilinks. Remember, disambiguation is important, and there are more than one Protons covered in the 'pedia.

• Understand.

I added a See Also section, and deleted a paragraph on the important of geosync orbit. This article is about the rocket, not one of the orbits HHLVs can hit, so it should stay on target and not drift.

• Sorry, but I emphatically disagree. The orbits are the very goal of the HLLV. Would you remove all references to the moon from the Apollo entry? Same thing. Goal: Moon. Solution: Apollo. Goal: geostationary orbit. Solution: HLLV.

Also, I removed empty sections. Just a quick note regarding some pretty big changes I made a few minutes after the article was written, don't want anyone to think my hacking and slashing was vandalism or anything. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Um... I see that you've created an account, and that's great. But it looks like you just deleted my changes and put back in the big section on Geosynchronous orbits plus added rocket fuels. Both of those are covered in other articles and really don't belong in this one. Also, as I noted before, you really REALLY don't need a disambiguation paragraph for Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle. Finally, having empty sections isn't really needed. I hope you'll consider my suggestions, or at least discuss the article. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

• When people are creating an article, it may take them several days to flesh it out. Please be considerate enough to let them finish before you put forth your own opinion. Also, I find it extremely rude for anyone to take an article begun by someone else and slash more than 70% of it, particularly when it's in the initial developmental stages.

AUTHOR'S RESPONSE:

I have reinserted the material Chairboy keeps removing. His edits are excessively "hacking and slashing," as he has removed material extremely pertinant to Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles. Most rockets cannot achieve these orbits with larger payloads, so a brief discussion about the orbits targeted by HHLVs is extremely pertinant. It's the reason they exist! The discussion of the orbits and fuels is extremely brief compared to other entries in Wiki on the same topic. In fact, many books have been written about each. Brief, introductory paragraphs are both valid, and required for an appropriate level of appreciate for HLLVs.

Chairboy's idea of "brief" appears to equate to "non-existant." He apparently does not understand how important a brief discussion of an HHLV's target orbits are to the very concept of the HHLV. The orbits and fules are so important, in fact, they're the reason Congress funds HHLVs at all. Without this brief understanding of orbits, there wouldn't be such a thing as HHLVs.

It's particularly critical that Wikipedia include this discussion because of the recent emphasis on manned missions to the Moon and Mars. These missions will rely exclusively on HHLVs, and a basic understanding of the need for HHLVs hinges upon an understanding of the orbits involved. Without this understanding, the funding for HHLVs will continue to dwindle, and the missions to the Moon and Mars will become little more than pipe dreams.

It DOESN'T MATTER that both the orbits and the fuels are covered in considerably greater detail in other sections.

What MATTERS is that both the orbits and the fuels are covered in lesser detail, here.

You can NOT expect your average Internet denizen to hop to dozens of pages from each and every article to obtain the BASIC information pertinant to the topic at hand. That's just plain rude, and an editor's pipe dream, at best. Fill in the basic info in EACH article, and provide links to the full information about rocket fuels and various orbits via entries dedicated to that purpose.

I believe that's what's been attempted. Unfortunately, someone keeps slashing the article. If this continues, I will report it to both the Help Desk and the General Complaints page, and drop a side note to Jimbo.

Capite?

That's Italian. Look it up. - Unsigned by Dr1819

Hi there! It's great to hear from you! I hope that we can now make some progress towards cleaning this article up to wikipedia standards. First of all, you probably shouldn't be so mad. Over the past couple days, I have made numerous attempts to contact you so we could get some consensus, so please don't snap at me. Second, please review WP:AGF, as we're not adversaries here, we're just editors trying to make good content, and I'm sure we can find a middle ground that serves the best interests of the wikipedia.

Finally, through the magic of Wikipedia, we can link directly to articles on big subjects like Geosynchronous orbit and the viabilities of different rocket fuels, and can do so directly in the article. That way, if someone doesn't understand what geo is, for example, they could click on Geosynchronous_orbit in the article and see a good, thorough writeup of it. The same is true for Rocket fuel. By putting in a couple paragraphs about what each of those are, you do two disservices. One, for not pointing to a good writeup, and two for increasing bulk on the wikipedia without commensurate gain in quality.

• Again, I couldn't disagree with you more. By slashing all content with respect to fuels and orbits, you force others to hop all over the place. Perhaps you like doing that. Fine. Most people don't. It would behoove you to respect that. Furthermore, it's critical to put basic (emphasis on basic) information within the article, while at the same time providing links to detailed information elsewhere. Most people do NOT want to go wade through the detailed information, but they DO want just enough basic information in the PRIMARY article so they can understand what they're reading. This idea of linking everything, and including nothing, is fundamentally flawed, again because people don't want to review the whole 9 yards on orbits or fuels. All they want is the basic info, the first yard, so they can comprehend the topic at hand, namely, Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles. If they want to know MORE about fuels or orbits (this implies they learned a little in the primary article), then by all means, they should follow the links.

• Bottom line, chairboy, your hacks and slashes are flawed, as they fail to adhere to the fundamental principle of communication: Consider Your Audience.

• I'll repeat it because it's that critical: Consider Your Audience.

• One can create a "masterpiece," but if the audience isn't buying it, then it's not really a masterpiece, is it? People do NOT want to wade through a plethora of links when the basic information at hand is enough to explain the primary article. Slashing that information is a grave disservice to the Audience, whom you are NOT considering when you take that approach.

• Question: Do you understand the difference between providing rudimentary information, such as I've done with the fuels and orbits in the HHLV article, and providing detailed information such as what exists when one follows the links?

• Finally, I'll ask you this: Please take some time to learn more about the process of communication, how the humand mind works, what people expect when they click on an article, how they learn, etc.

• As much as I dislike this next part, I feel you've left me no choice, so toot my own horn I must. I've been studying this process in depth for about thirty years. I've been published (paid) in many periodicals on a variety of topics. I've rewritten entire books on a variety of subjects, because the authors, as knowledgeable as they were in their fields of expertise, did not understand the fundamentals of the communication process. That's enough tooting for now. It was my ernest hope that it lend credence to the fact that there was a reason fundamental to the process of communication as to why I included the basic information on fuels and orbits in the HHLV article.

• Furthermore, I would encourage you to change your practices on other articles as well, chairboy. Again, failing to include the basic information on closely related topics is a grave disservice to the reader. Do not forget that they need the basic related information, but they do NOT want to chase links where they'll find entire dissertations! That's not considering the needs of your audience. It's not meeting their needs.

• Thank you, and I hope you can come to understand why I'm responding this way. I believe in Wiki very, very much, and I want to see it done right. Over-fragmentation isn't right. Readers are not computers!

• Finaly note: As a systems analyst (similar to a database designer/developer), I FULLY understand the need to eliminate redundancies! Ensuring a database conforms to the Domain Key Normal Form (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization#Domain.2Fkey_normal_form) is difficult, but well worth the effort. While there are many similarities, the differences between a database and Wiki, however, is striking. A database may be queried by a user, but it's through a formalized process (namely by clicking a button). It's actually read by the computer. Redunancy introduces errors. Wiki, on the other hand, is both queried and read directly by a human. Humans are not computers. We don't have time to click links when the information we need about a particular topic should be right in front of us. We don't have the inclination to muddle through 1,500 words on Rocket Fuels or Geostationary Orbits when the 200 words directly in front of us are enough to bring us up to speed with respect to the primary article on Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles.

• I sincerely hope you can bring yourself to understand where I'm going with this. And please bear in mind this isn't "my" concept. It's the results of decades of studies on human communication by the best experts in the field. I'm just a messenger, and one who's seen it work extremely well in practice. Ignoring it would be a foolish thing to do.

• Thank you for your time.

I appreciate you creating this article, it's definitaley needed, but in the interest of quality, there's got to be a way to get rid of some of the redundant fluff, and that's what the sections on Geo and rocket fuels are, with respect. I'll put together another version of the page in /temp that I think will take into account your concerns better, now that I know what they are. I'll put a link here for you to check out, hopefully we can come to consensus. Best regards, and welcome to Wikipedia! - CHAIRBOY (☎) 19:08, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

---

Since you peppered your response through the article above, I'll just reply down here. I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your assessment, and I'd like to make a couple of points. First, waving your 30 years of rocket experience around as a sword isn't terribly on-topic, as the edits I've been making have been motivated by good writing, not rocket science. I think your version of this article is pretty dang fluffy, and being a rocket scientist does not make anyone a natural born writer. Second, it seems as if you've fallen prey to the Wikipedia phenomenon of feeling a direct ownership of an article. Traditionally, people who get pulled into that trap feel that the edits others do to their writing are hurting their "baby". This is a collaborative effort, so be careful not to be a victim of this, you'll have lower blood pressure and live longer!  :) Also, regarding your request that I not edit it when its new so you can flesh it out, remember, you have a preview button! Consider each saved edit to be a publishing cycle. The article should stand on its own after each submission, having a bunch of blank sections really doesn't cut it.

Finally, I'm troubled that you've extended your personal disagreements about this article to be a general assessment of me that concludes I don't understand communication or know how to edit. In the end, it's really not a big deal of course, but I think you do yourself a disservice by judging with such a wide brush.

In summary: 1. Just because you're a doctor (as you've said repeatedly) doesn't mean your writing cannot be edited. 2. Remember that the text is GPLd, so you're not the "owner". 3. Be careful to avoid personal attacks. Nobody on Wikipedia is served by them, and they hurt the process.

If you feel you can participate in a collaborative effort to improve this article, let me know. I'm not willing to engage in any type of revert warfare over it, but I would like to improve the quality of Wikipedia, and this article is in need of grooming. Best regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Proposed version - Oct 2005

Hi there! Please check out this proposed version: HHLV/tmp I cut out some of the stuff that I thought was redundant, left some of the stuff in that you feel strongly about, and I think the article is a little closer to what something on the WP should look like. I'd like your thoughts on it, Dr1819, because I'm sure we can come to some consensus. Best regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 17:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Chairboy - Looks like we've reached a consensus!

I agree to the edits you made in the TMP page, provided you update the Orbits page to include the following text (or appropriate details thereof), as some of the following is a compilation of general knowledge and not found specifically in the Orbits page:

"The reason for this is that the GTO is an orbit cycling between a perigee tangent to LOE and an apogee tangent to a geostationary orbit. At the point where the orbit is tangent to the geostationary orbit, the payload can conduct a controlled burn and insert itself into the geostationary orbit, where it will hold its position 22,240 miles over a specific spot on the equator. By contrast, geosynchronous orbits have the same period of orbit as the Earth has of rotation (24 hours), but the orbits themselves may be elliptical, and can also be outside of an equitorial orbit."

Also, please consider referencing any HLLV-specific info on the Orbits page with a link to the Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle page.

Finally, how do I create an entry for "HLLV" that automatically forwards to "Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle"?

Thanks!

Hi Dr1819! I don't want to pooch up your suggestion, maybe you could make the edit? I note that there is already an article Geosynchronous_transfer_orbit, would you be able to use it in the text? One thing I'd like to mention, your description of GTO is good, but I wonder if it might scare away non-technical readers who are interested in learning. What would you say to something a little easier to digest (with links to perhaps the more technical Geosynchronous_transfer_orbit page) that say something along the lines of "A Geosynchronous transfer orbit is a special trajectory that is used by rockets to insert a payload into Geostationary orbit (at 22,240 miles above the equator where the satellite remains motionless in relation to the earth)." then your 'By contrast' sentence about geosynchronous orbits. Just a suggestion, but the difference between mentioning the tangent of the perigee to LOE and not mentioning it might be someone who keep going, then digs a little deeper (versus deciding that they could 'never figure out this stuff' and giving up). It's totally up to you, just a thought from someone coming from a different angle. BTW, I've created a link for HLLV that points to the main page. To make your own in the future, create a new page that has nothing but #REDIRECT [[Target page]] in it. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds goo, Chairboy! I've got a bunch of things I'm doing at work, but don't worry - I'll get to it as soon as I can.

- DR1819

Couple of edits to clean things up and remove ambiguities. Dr1819 19:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

GTO

Heavy Lift are capable of 20mt to LEO or at least 9,000 kg to GTO (geosynchronous transfer orbit). - need a secondary source for this definitional claim that heavy lift is above 9k GTO, 20k LEO kg. Space Shuttle doesn't lift 9mt+ to GTO, some other of the Heavy Lift rockets listed also don't have this capability. Alinor (talk) 12:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Good point Alinor. I agree, of course. And on a related note, I've had real trouble finding a reliable secondary source for the entire set of definitional claims that several WP articles use for medium-lift, mid-heavy lift, heavy-lift and super-heavy-lift. Do you know of one? I think this will be needed to support the new template that you have added to several of the "List of _____ lift launch vehicle" articles. N2e (talk) 12:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Delta IV Heavy?

The article currently distinguishes between those demonstrated to have carried 20+ tonnes into LEO, and those capable of it. So why is DIVH in the demonstrated class, when all the payloads (including, presumably, weight) are classified? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:53, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Good point. The only non-classified mission it has flown (other than its maiden flight, which carried no large payload) is Orion's Exploration Flight Test 1. According to the NASA press kit [1], the combined (Capsule + Service Module + Launch abort system) mass was 21,000 kg. The LAS, weighing some 5-6 tonnes, was jettisoned before the vehicle was orbital, but the DIVH's upper stage (DCSS) did reach the parking orbit still attached to the payload (since it was needed to loft Orion and the SM to a high apogee). Considering that the DCSS's dry mass is around 3.5 tonnes, and that it was probably at around 30% propellant capacity after reaching orbit (judging roughly from the burn times), which would amount to about 8 tonnes of prop, I'd say the mass to LEO was probably above 20,000 kg. But I haven't been able to find a direct source. Meithan (talk) 03:41, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I've listed Orion's flight test as justification for Delta IV Heavy's heavy-lift rating, even though I can't find any direct reference to the actual total mass lifted to LEO, excluding the LAS but including the upper stage. I feel that the argument based on the official data described above strongly supports the conclusion that LEO mass was above 20 tonnes, but if someone thinks this definitely violates WP:NOR I'm open to taking it down (if that's the case, we'd have to remove the entry from the table of proven heavy-lift launch vehicles as no public evidence can be provided). –Meithan (talk) 21:31, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Since you're here, JFG, might I take advantage of your Wikipedia experience to give us an opinion about this? I'm having guilt episodes regarding WP:NOR here, but I haven't found another way to solve it and yet I think the DIVH does belong to the "proven" section. Is this salvageable under WP:CALC? –Meithan (talk) 05:33, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

On the Orion EFT-1, I think you're walking a fine line between CALC and NOR indeed, but there are imho simpler ways to demonstrate that Delta IV Heavy is a proven HLLV. Considering that the HLLV classification is itself defined by the US government, the very existence of this rocket proves the point. Any classified payloads under 20 tonnes could be launched by regular Delta IV or by Atlas V, so that there must be something bigger to justify flying any Delta IV Heavy at all. Sounds like OR, but I'm sure sources can be found making this argument. — JFG ^talk 05:59, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I've searched for other DIVH payloads but I've been so far unable to find a reference to settle the issue. SpaceLaunchReport has a list (bottom of page) with speculative payload masses for Delta launches (only up to May 2014). The heaviest listed there is NROL-65 at "~17000 kg". Astronautix lists its mass as 15,000 kg, but lists that of NROL-49 as 17,000 kg. I'm starting to suspect that none of the NRO payloads orbited to LEO so far have weighed over 20,000 kg. It's possible that the higher performance of the DIVH (vs Delta IV/Atlas V) has only been required for heavy GTO launches so far. Very few payloads weigh 20 tonnes anyway. Orion might be the heaviest to LEO so far for the rocket.

An alternative I see is to find solid direct references for the masses of the components of the EFT-1 launch (Orion capsule, service module, launch abort system and DCSS) so that deriving the total mass to orbit is a clear arithmetic operation. Then the estimation might be more easily justified as WP:CALC. A cite for the orbited mass of the DCSS, including remaining propellant, might be tricky to find, though. –Meithan (talk) 16:16, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Proton-M Intelsat 31 launch?

According to the table, Proton-M launched Intelsat 31 directly to GEO. Some quick googling shows that it was instead launched to a much more logical GTO orbit. If this is the case, could someone cite a good source and find something else to put in the elsewhere column for Proton-M? Quadrplax (talk) 00:50, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Intelsat 31 was sent to a supersynchronous orbit at 65,000 km apogee. Pretty much qualifies for a direct geostationary insertion, because the satellite's engine had then very little delta-v to apply in order to circularize the orbit at geostationary altitude of 36,000 km. Still, text should be updated, will do. — JFG ^talk 01:53, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@JFG: wait, I remember the difference between standard GTO and typical SSTO not being that big, something like 1500 m/s vs. 1800 m/s. So I disagree: that definitely doesn't "pretty much qualifies for a direct GEO insertion". A direct GEO insertion would require 0 m/s from the spacecraft. 1500 vs 1800 is only a 17% saving (which might be a worthy saving, but the spacecraft still has a lot of work to do). –Meithan (talk) 02:24, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

There are plenty of supersync orbit profiles, so there's a wide range of delta-v remaining to be handled by the satellite's propulsion system: can be anything between 0 and 1,800 m/s. I did change the text, as this was clearly not a 0 m/s "pure" geostationary insertion. — JFG ^talk 02:29, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Also note that this particular launch had its perigee raised to 3,500 km by the Briz-M third stage, which performed no less than 5 burns. — JFG ^talk 02:32, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't think there's as much variation in the delta-v of SSTO profiles as you claim (even with a near-zero starting inclination the apogee is never very high, and most of the energy is spent raising the apogee). I could run the numbers and compute the required delta-v for Intelsat 31 to transition to GEO from the deployment orbit (assuming the most efficient strategy). But I don't think there's much point, as I think the current shape of the article is perfect. –Meithan (talk) 04:38, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, article looks good for now. Interesting exercise in orbital mechanics, though, I'd love to see the outcome, and compare it to Intelsat 35e for example, which was also sent to supersync, but with a single burn of the Falcon 9 second stage, and therefore a low perigee. Inclination was also quite different between Cape Canaveral and Baikonur, so Briz-M had to work harder. — JFG ^talk 04:45, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't want to abuse this talk page with unnecessary stuff, but here's the calculation. For Intelsat 31, I compared injecting the satellite into a "standard" GTO (200 km x 35,768 km x 50.5° -- note the exaggerated inclination) vs. a 3,500 km x 65,000 km x 50.5° supersynchronous transfer orbit. Total Δv's are 2399 m/s and 1950 m/s, respectively. That's a 19% reduction. Not bad at all. But the inclination is higher than realistic, the upper stage would reduce it somewhat during its last burn. For launches from lower latitudes (=smaller injection inclination) the saving is smaller. And the high injection perigee can be helpful when the required inclination change is not too big (not the case for Intelsat 31 at 50.5°). –Meithan (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

@Meithan: Thanks for taking the trouble to compute this; very informative. And now, let's stop our WP:OR interlude… — JFG ^talk 00:19, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Sources

Proton-M

Technically until Nauka (ISS module) goes it is "unproven". Also, how do you guys suggest representing Saturn V in a table format considering that all but 11 of the 13 launches were super-heavy profiles. Nergaal (talk) 19:58, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Retired Saturn V but no Energia

The Super HLLV Saturn V is in the retired table so why not also add the Energia shown in SHLLV ? - Rod57 (talk) 11:27, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

If there is a good solid source for the class of the Energia launch vehicle, then sure, should be added. The current Energia article is bit inconsistent on whether Energia is a "super-heavy" (claimed, but no source provided) or "heavy" (also claimed, but sources a bit unclear) launch vehicle. So there might be a bit of work to get that sorted. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:05, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

According to the lead in this article, NASA and Russia have different definitions of Heavy-Lift (50,000 kg, vs 100,000 kg to LEO) so Energia seems on the Russian boundary. Is there any harm in having Energia (and others) in both articles ? - Rod57 (talk) 08:47, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Proven / Unproven distinction

Falcon Heavy has just launched over 6,000kg to 90,000km supersynchronous GTO, all reuseable except for second stage. This might be close to being as onerous as launching 20,000kg to LEO. If it is as onerous as 20,000kg to LEO then it does not appear appropriate to say it is 'unproven'. Even if payload mass to that orbit is not quite as onerous as 20,000kg to LEO then it is still clear stages have proven they have more to give in more expendable format because of work done proven by the landing. How much needs to be proven to put it in operational category (presumably meaning available to procure and capable of launching 20,000kg to LEO)? crandles (talk) 12:06, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Are there any RS sources making this analysis? As tempting as it is, we can't rely on our own OR. — JFG ^talk 14:04, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Fair point. However, I note that article indicates Proton-M has no launches over 20,000Kg but it is still placed in operational rather than unproven category. So predecessor is allowed to count as proving capability but useful work done in landing boosters is not allowed to count? That seems like a somewhat arbitrary decision and I wanted to open a more general discussion of what should count rather than end the discussion at 'RS needed'. Perhaps also getting into: Is the article placing too much emphasis on 'need to prove' what only needs to be a capability? Is stressing requirement for proof by such categorisation getting close to the point of being a slur on the manufacturers concerned by implying wikipedia doesn't believe them? crandles (talk) 15:13, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

The Proton case cannot be compared with Falcon Heavy. Proton-M is an evolution of Proton-K with slightly higher power and new electronics; it's only logical that whatever Proton-K has achieved can also be considered proven on Proton-M. On the other hand, there is no version of Falcon Heavy that has yet lifted 20+ tons into LEO, even though it can do it on paper. That remains true of all configurations, irrespective of how many boosters are expended. Yes, Falcon Heavy is rated heavy-lift, or even super-heavy in some configurations; no, it has not demonstrated this capability in an actual flight. — JFG ^talk 19:40, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Do we need this proven/unproven distinction once the launcher is operational ?

Did Wikipedia invent this ? Just for heavy-lift ? Can't we merge these two sections and just maybe note the heaviest payload so far ? - Rod57 (talk) 19:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

ISRO ULV-HLV(Indian Heavy Launch Vehicle)

Would it be relevant to add Indian Heavy launch vehicle in the under development section. Wiki Page for the same:-https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Launch_Vehicle References for the Indian heavy launch vehicle:- 1)http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/India/ULV/Description/Text.htm

2)https://i.imgur.com/wtgxPDL.jpg

3)http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/India/LVM3/Versions/LVM3.htm Mayank Prasoon (talk) 07:49, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

One reference for the engine associated with the launch vehicle:- https://astrotalkuk.org/episode-90-an-update-on-isros-activities-with-s-somanath-and-r-umamaheshwaran/

Mayank Prasoon (talk) 07:51, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I will add this launch vehicle in the under devlopment section if there is no reply by 7th December 2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mayank Prasoon (talk • contribs) 09:13, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Falcon Heavy fully expended should be included

Falcon Heavy fully expended should be included in the tables, since it is within the Russian definition. Can add asterisk saying it is super-heavy-lift in NASA defn. Also, since it would be useful, since FH competed with the HL launchers such as D4H. - Rod57 (talk) 08:28, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

When do we include LandSpace#Zhuque-3 as under development

When do we include LandSpace#Zhuque-3 as under development ? It's planned to be a very close match to Falcon 9 FT, eg 21 tonnes to LEO. - Rod57 (talk) 18:48, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Unproven could include Falcon Heavy with 2 boosters recovered, since includes Falcon Heavy (all boosters recoverable)

Unproven could include Falcon Heavy with 2 boosters recovered (FH2R), since it already includes Falcon Heavy (all boosters recoverable). Either an extra row, or widen definition of current row ? FH2R has launched 9,200 kg Jupiter-3 to GTO for Echostar in late July 2023. - Rod57 (talk) 19:06, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

"Only counting launches between 20,000 and 50,000 kg."

The above note is on the tables counting how many times a rocket has launched. This very much complicates counting how many times a rocket has launched, and is confusing if we ever consider remaining fuel as a potential part of a payload (for refueling purposes in the future, for vehicles with kick stages etc.). Furthermore, the pages for small, medium, and super heavy lift vehicles don't include this distinction, it's just total launches for the vehicles.

I do agree for the Falcon vehicles with different reusability configurations, it is good to differentiate, as in only counting expendable Falcon 9's as heavy-lift. Alpacaaviator (talk) 23:52, 22 October 2024 (UTC)