Spacex-api: No clear way to determine legs and fins configuration on Falcon9

[markvital]

I could not find out weather the landing legs and grid fins on Falcon9 were installed from JSON data.
I found land_success and landing_intent flags in rocket->first_stage->cores[0] but it's not enough to definitely find out if booster/fins were installed.
I could not use rocket_type and rocket_name information either because there are many configurations of Falcon9 v1.1.

You can easily see all the possibilities of legs/fins on this infographic, I created a few years ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/68iw7q/all_spacex_launches_and_booster_landing_attempts/

I'm using version 3 of API.

Looking forward for your help.

[markvital]

One way to solve this is to create some sort of rocket_cofiguration (or booster/core conf.) abstraction, which will contain this data.

I counted at least 13 different configuration of SpaceX rockets family, taking into account rocket version, payload, grids and fins installation:

1. Falcon-1
2. Falcon-9-v1-dragon
3. Falcon-9-v1_1-satellite
4. Falcon-9-v1_1-dragon-legs
5. Falcon-9-v1_1-satellite-legs
6. Falcon-9-v1_1-dragon
7. Falcon-9-v1_1_dragon-legs-and-fins
8. Falcon-9-v1_1-satellite-legs-and-fins
9. Falcon-9-v1_2-satellite-legs-and-fins
10. Falcon-9-v1_2_dragon-legs-and-fins
11. Falcon-9-v1_2-satellite
12. FalconHeavy
13. BFR

You can easily see them on the graphic:

[jakewmeyer]

This is data that isn't tracked currently, but should be.

We can easily add the following on each launch:

  "first_stage": {
    "gridfins": true,
    "legs": true
  }

Abstracting away the entire rocket config might be a bit overkill for such a small change

[markvital]

Yes, that would be great!
Did you mean "first_stage" instead of second?

[jakewmeyer]

Yes, first stage 👍

[jakewmeyer]

@markvital All launches should be updated at this point 👍

Decided to move the data in with the existing core data, to allow for different configs depending on the core.

"first_stage": {
      "cores": [
        {
          "core_serial": "B1048",
          "flight": 2,
          "block": 5,
          "gridfins": true,
          "legs": true,
          "reused": true,
          "land_success": true,
          "landing_intent": true,
          "landing_type": "RTLS",
          "landing_vehicle": "LZ-4"
        }
      ]
    },

[jesusrp98]

Would be a good idea to include that information in the cores end point as well?

[markvital]

@jakewmeyer what is "core"?
ELI5 :)

[jakewmeyer]

@jesusrp98 I thought about it initially, but a core isn't guaranteed to always use the fins and legs for every flight, especially if it's reused multiple times.

[jakewmeyer]

@markvital A core is just another name for the first stage rocket booster

[jesusrp98]

@jakewmeyer That's right. Some reused Block 3 & 4 boosters weren't featuring landing legs, since SpaceX didn't want to recover them.

[markvital]

@jakewmeyer so when this new data will be live?

[jakewmeyer]

@markvital Should already be live

[markvital]

@jakewmeyer
Thank you!
BTW, I see some nulls for future launches. Filed it as a separate issue #178