The Downlink's first run was from December 2010 to March 2011, after which it was revived from October 2020 to October 2021. The second revival (volume 3 onwards) will mostly continue with the second volume's style. Depending on how many editors participate during and following volume 3, volume 4 onwards may see significant changes to format and style.
This special issue is intended to cover the most important changes from the last issue to 31 December 2023. The next special issue will cover all of 2024. After that, special issues will only be published for significant events (decided by consensus at The Downlink talk page). Volume 3 will be published monthly starting in February.
In the News
2021
The DART mission was launched on 24 November. It successfully impacted Dimorphos on 26 September 2022.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December. An international partnership between NASA, ESA, and CSA, it reached its destination in January 2022. Its first image was made public on 11 July 2022.
Dinkinesh was revealed to be a binary pair of asteroids on 1 November following a flyby by the Lucy spacecraft.
Starship flight test 2 successfully saw Starship reach space, but the first stage exploded shortly after separation and the second stage was lost after eight minutes.
The United States broke the record for most launches by a nation (108). The record was previously held by the Soviet Union since 1982.
Number of active members: 175. Total number of members: 399.
Launches Since Previous Issue All times stated here are in UTC. See full lists: here, here, and here. Due to the length of this issue, only a few launches are included here.
Since October 2021, one top-importance article has been removed. 17 new high-importance, 40 new mid-importance, 282 new low-importance, and 572 other articles have been created, for a total of 910 new articles. 15 more articles have been promoted to Featured status, as have 16 images. One article has been promoted to Good Article status. There is also one A-Class article, 308 more B-Class articles, 93 fewer C-Class articles, 49 more Start-Class articles, 48 fewer Stub-Class articles, 13 more lists, and ten more files.
Since November 2022, there has been a cleanup effort. Although primarily focused on resolving issues with pages, it also results in pages being reassessed or deleted.
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Newsletter contributor: Ships&Space
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