rocket
Also known as rockets
alt=|thumb|upright|A Soyuz-FG rocket launches from "[[Gagarin's Start" (Site 1/5), Baikonur Cosmodrome ]] A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is an elongated flying vehicle that uses a rocket engine to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Unlike jet engines, rockets are fuelled entirely by propellant which they carry, without the need for oxygen from air; consequently a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space, indeed rocket engines operate more efficiently outside the atmosphere.
AI overview
A rocket is an elongated vehicle powered by a rocket engine that expels exhaust at high speed to create thrust, allowing it to fly even in the vacuum of space where there is no air. Rockets matter because they carry all their own fuel and don't need oxygen from the air to operate, making them uniquely capable of reaching space and beyond, unlike jet engines that depend on atmospheric air.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Wikidata facts
- Image
- Chinese rocket.png
via Wikidata · CC0
Article
36 sectionsContents
- History
- Types
- Design
- Components
- Engines
- Propellant
- Pendulum rocket fallacy
- Uses
- Military
- Science and research
- Spaceflight
- Rescue
- Hobby, sport, and entertainment
- Flight
- Noise
- Physics
- Operation
- Forces on a rocket in flight
- Drag
- Net thrust
- Total impulse
- Specific impulse
- Delta-v (rocket equation)
- Mass ratios
- Staging
- Acceleration and thrust-to-weight ratio
- Energy
- Energy efficiency
- Oberth effect
- Safety, reliability and accidents
- Costs and economics
- 2010s emerging private competition
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
alt=|thumb|upright|A Soyuz-FG rocket launches from "[[Gagarin's Start" (Site 1/5), Baikonur Cosmodrome ]] A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is an elongated flying vehicle that uses a rocket engine to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Unlike jet engines, rockets are fuelled entirely by propellant which they carry, without the need for oxygen from air; consequently a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space, indeed rocket engines operate more efficiently outside the atmosphere.
Multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets may use momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, and spin, or may simply fly in a ballistic trajectory under the influence of gravity.