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Wikipedia to the Moon/Wrap-up

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The Wikipedia to the Moon Working phase ended on October 31. Wikipedians from all over the world helped editing hundreds of Wikipedia articles and lists to featured status. We successfully converted the data of over 31.500 Featured Articles and Lists from Wikipedia to the disc. On December 5, International Volunteer Day, the disc was handed over to the PT Scientists, who will take the disc into space next year.


International Volunteer Day

On December 5th, International Volunteer Day, the time finally arrived to hand over our Wikipedia data disc to the PT Scientists. For our press event, they brought along their Landing and Navigation Module ALINA where the Wikipedia-disc will be stored and a Lunar Quattro moon rover.



Around 31.500 Featured Articles and Lists from 176 languages are now ready to be launched into space next year. During this year's working phase between July and October, almost 500 new articles gained featured status. The work from Wikipedians from all over the world will now be sent to the moon as a time capsule of free human knowledge. You also helped lastingly improve the quality of Wikipedia in many different languages. In order to thank all our volunteers for this impressive feat, we also have a little thank you present for everyone who helped write those featured articles: In addition to sending all Featured Articles and Lists, we also created lists of all the authors who worked on these articles and put them alongside the Articles in the directory of the disc. So if you have in any way contributed to a Featured Article or List, your name will be immortalised on the moon!


The PT Scientists announced in December that they have secured a launch rocket for their project. The earliest possible launch date is at the end of 2017. The goal of their mission is to explore the remains of the Apollo 17 mission on the Moon's surface.


Watch our footage from the hand-over

Because Wikipedia to the Moon was a collaborative international project, not all of you could be there when we handed over the disc. We have created a short video from Wikipedia to the Moon on International Volunteer Day at Wikimedia Deutschland to share this experience with you. You can watch a version with English subtitles here.


Wikipedia to the Moon on International Volunteer Day