List of spaceflight missions
The file
missions.html
lists each human spaceflight mission. The columns in the table
are described below:
To fully describe a human spaceflight mission we need to consider
its different segments, allowing for transfer of astronauts
from one ship to another and for stays aboard space stations.
A stay aboard a space station is called an
expedition.
Expeditions are also assigned mission tags; they are kept in a
separate file to make the task of counting `number of human space mission
launches' simpler. The expeditions file is
expeditions.html
In the simple case, the space station mission has three segments:
the ferry ship from launch to docking, the expedition from docking
to undocking, and the ferry ship from undocking to landing. However
more complicated situations exist, where a ferry ship docks to add
crew to an existing expedition, or where the expedtion ends with
cremembers remaining on board and reassigned to a new expedition.
Therefore, the start and end times of the expedition are not necessarily
the start and end times of a particular crew member's stay on the station.
The third set of mission tags are called the
list. This is for spacecraft which are launched without anyone aboard
but are later occupied. A particular case of interest here is that of the
Apollo lunar modules. The auxlilary missions are listed in
auxmissions.html
All these mission tag file have the same format. The columns are:
Column Descriptions
- HSFID:
Catalog number for the spaceflight.
Human spaceflights (flights which carried one or more
humans above 80 km) are given IDs with a 5-digit running number prefixed by 'H'.
Human spaceflight aborts and failures which did not reach 80 km are given
a 4-digit running number prefixed by 'HA'. These aborts do not include
countdowns scrubbed (cancelled) on the ground prior to rocket ignition. They
do include pad aborts (where ignition occurred but no liftoff) and airplane-launch
drop aborts (where carrier plane takeoff occurred but no drop happened) as well
as launches which took off but failed to reach 80 km (notably, Shuttle mission 51-L).
Spaceflights by primate nonhumans are indexed with prefix 'HB'. For now,
only chimpanzee flights are included in this category.
- HSFTAG
- Mission tag:
a short (max 8 chars, usually less) mnemonic tag to identify the
spaceflight. Equivalent to the HSFID but easier for the reader to remember. Used
in the
Rides list
to tie an individual's ride (seat) to a specific
mission. See also the
Role Tags
page for a discussion of mission tags and role tags.
- DESIG
Launch designation for the mission, as in the General Catalog of Space Objects.
- JTAG
General Catalog ID for the space object in which the humans were launched.
See the General Catalog of Space Objects.
- Spaceship
Name of the spaceship
- Launch
Launch date (UTC), for missions. For expeditions, this is
the start time of the expedition (This is not always officially
defined, so I have exercised my best judgement as needed).
- Landing
Landing date (UTC), for missions. For expeditions, this is
the end time of the expedition.
- Duration
Flight duration (days:hours:min:sec). (Seconds are
omitted when data is not available to the needed precision].
- Crew -
Number of humans aboard at launch. (For space station expeditions
this value is not meaningful.)
- Callsign.
For Russian missions, the callsign is associated with the spacecraft commander.
For some missions the values in this field are somewhat arbitrary.
- Station -
Space station with which the mission docked or was intended to dock; or for expeditions the
space station on which the expedition took place.
- Program.
Overall program that the mission is part of.
Human spaceflights to date may be allocated to one of a small number of overall programs, defined in
the
Programs list.
- Project.
Project that the mission is part of. See also the
Projects list.
- OrbID.
Running numbers for orbital missions (ORBnnn) and suborbital missions (SOnnn). Entry is blank for aborts/failures.
- DS.
Running number for deep space missions (apogee more than 150000 km ), blank otherwise.
- SSF.
Running number for space station flights, blank otherwise.